In the last few months we have tested the latest x86 integrated graphics options on the desktop from AMD, with some surprising results about how performant a platform with integrated graphics can be. In this review, we’re doing a similar test but with Intel’s latest Rocket Lake Core 11^th Gen processors. These processors feature Intel’s X^e-LP graphics, which were touted as ‘next-generation’ when they launched with Intel’s mobile-focused Tiger Lake platform. However, the version implemented on Rocket Lake has fewer graphics units, slower memory, but a nice healthy power budget to maximize. Lo, Intel set forth for battle.

When a CPU meets GPU

Intel initially started integrating graphics onto its systems in 1999, by pairing the chipset with some form of video output. In 2010, the company moved from chipset graphics to on-board processor graphics, enabling the graphics hardware to take advantage of a much faster bandwidth to main memory as well as a much lower latency. Intel’s consumer processors now feature integrated graphics as the default configuration, with Intel at times dedicating more of the processor design to graphics than to actual cores.

Intel CPUs: IGP as a % of Die Area
AnandTech	Example	Launched	Cores	IGP	Size	IGP as Die Area %
Sandy Bridge	i7-2600K	Jan 2011	4	Gen6	GT2	11%
Ivy Bridge	i7-3770K	April 2012	4	Gen7	GT2	29%
Haswell	i7-4770K	June 2013	4	Gen7.5	GT2	29%
Broadwell	i7-5775C	June 2015	4	Gen8	GT3e	48%
Skylake	i7-6700K	Aug 2015	4	Gen9	GT2	36%
Kaby Lake	i7-7700K	Jan 2017	4	Gen9	GT2	36%
Coffee Lake	i7-8700K	Sept 2017	6	Gen9	GT2	30%
Coffee Lake	i9-9900K	Oct 2018	8	Gen9	GT2	26%
Comet Lake	i9-10900K	April 2020	10	Gen9	24 EUs	22%
Rocket Lake	i9-11900K	March 2021	8	Xe-LP	32 EUs	21%
Mobile CPUs
Ice Lake-U	i7-1065G7	Aug 2019	4	Gen11	64 EUs	36%
Tiger Lake-U	i7-1185G7	Sept 2020	4	Xe-LP	96 EUs	32%

All the way from Intel’s first integrated graphics to its 2020 product line, Intel was reliant on its ‘Gen’ design. We saw a number of iterations over the years, with updates to the function and processing ratios, with Gen11 featuring heavily in Intel’s first production 10nm processor, Ice Lake.

The latest graphics design however is different. No longer called ‘Gen’, Intel upcycled its design with additional compute, more features, and an extended effort for the design to scale from mobile compute all the way up to supercomputers. This new graphics family, known as X^e, is now the foundation of Intel’s graphics portfolio. It comes in four main flavors:

• X^e-HPC for High Performance Computing in Supercomputers
• X^e-HP for High Performance and Optimized FP64
• X^e-HPG for High Performance Gaming with Ray Tracing
• X^e-LP for Low Power for Integrated and Entry Level

Intel has initially rolled out its LP designs into the market place, first with its Tiger Lake mobile processors, then with its X^e MAX entry level notebook graphics card, and now with Rocket Lake.

X^e-LP, A Quick Refresher

Intel’s LP improves on the previous Gen11 graphics by reorganizing the base structure of the design. Rather than 7 logic units per execution unit, we now have 8, and LP’s front-end can dispatch up two triangles per clock rather than one. The default design of LP involves 96 execution units, split into a centralized ‘slice’ that has all the geometry features and fixed function hardware, and up to 6 ‘sub-slices’ each with 16 logic units and 64 KiB of L1 cache. Each variant of LP can then have up to 96 execution units in a 6x16 configuration.

Execution units now work in pairs, rather than on their own, with a thread scheduler shared between each pair. Even with this change, each individual execution unit has moved to an 8+2 wide design, with the first 8 working on FP/INT and the final two on complex math. Previously we saw something more akin to a 4+4 design, so Intel has rebalanced the math engine while also making in larger per unit. This new 8+2 design actually decreases the potential of some arithmetic directly blocking the FP pipes, improving throughput particularly in graphics and compute workloads.

The full Tiger Lake LP solution has all 96 execution units, with six sub-slices each of 16 execution units (6x16), Rocket Lake is neutered by comparison. Rocket Lake has 4 sub-slices, which would suggest a 64 execution unit design, but actually half of those EUs are disabled per sub-slice, and the final result is a 32 EU implementation (4x8). The two lowest Rocket Lake processors have only a 3x8 design. By having only half of each sub-slide active, this should in theory give more cache per thread during operation, and provides less cache pressure. Intel has enabled this flexibility presumably to provide a lift in edge-case graphics workloads for the parts that have fractional sub-slices enabled.

X^e-LP also comes with a revamped media engine. Along with a 12-bit end-to-end video pipeline enabling HDR, there is also HEVC coding support and AV1 decode, the latter of which is a royalty-free codec providing reported similar or better quality than HEVC. Intel is the first desktop IGP solution to provide AV1 accelerated decode support.

Rocket Lake Comparisons

For this review, we are using the Core i9-11900K, Core i7-11700K, and Core i5-11600K. These three are the highest power processors in Intel’s Rocket Lake lineup, and as a result they support the highest configuration of LP graphics that Intel provides on Rocket Lake. All three processors have a 4x8 configuration, and a turbo frequency up to 1300 MHz.

Intel Integrated Graphics
AnandTech	Core i9 11900K	Core i7 11700K	Core i5 11600K		Core i9 10900K
Cores	8 / 16	8 / 16	6 / 12		10 / 20
Base Freq	3500 MHz	3600 MHz	3900 MHz		3700 MHz
1T Turbo	5300 MHz	5000 MHz	4900 MHz		5300 MHz
GPU uArch	Xe-LP	Xe-LP	Xe-LP		Gen 11
GPU EUs	32 EUs	32 EUs	32 EUs		24 EUs
GPU Base	350 MHz	350 MHz	350 MHz		350 MHz
GPU Turbo	1300 MHz	1300 MHz	1300 MHz		1200 MHz
Memory	DDR4-3200	DDR4-3200	DDR4-3200		DDR4-2933
Cost (1ku)	$539	$399	$262		$488

Our comparison points are going to be Intel’s previous generation Gen11 graphics, as tested on the Core i9-10900K which has a 24 Execution Unit design, AMD’s latest desktop processors, a number of Intel’s mobile processors, and a discrete graphics option with the GT1030.

In all situations, we will be testing with JEDEC memory. Graphics loves memory bandwidth, and CPU memory controllers are slow by comparison to mobile processors or discrete cards; while a GPU might love 300 GB/s from some GDDR memory, a CPU with two channels of DDR4-3200 will only have 51.2 GB/s. Also, that memory bank needs to be shared between CPU and GPU, making it all the more complex. The use case for most of these processors on integrated graphics will often be in prebuilt systems designed to a price. That being said, if the price of Ethereum keeps increasing, integrated graphics might be the only thing we have left.

The goal for our testing comes in two flavors: Best Case and Best Experience. This means for most benchmarks we will be testing at 720p Low and 1080p Max, as this is the area in which integrated graphics is used. If a design can’t perform at 720p Low, then it won’t be going anywhere soon, however if we can achieve good results at 1080p Max in certain games, then integrated graphics lends itself as a competitive option against the basic discrete graphics solutions.

If you would like to see the full CPU review of these Rocket Lake processors, please read our review:

Intel Rocket Lake (14nm) Review: Core i9-11900K, Core i7-11700K, and Core i5-11600K

Pages In This Review

1. Analysis and Competition
2. Integrated Graphics Gaming
3. Conclusions and Final Words

Integrated Graphics

For our main tests, there are areas to consider and determine if these processors are at the very least, usable. This means:

1. Competition against Intel’s previous IGPs: Comet Lake (i9-10900K) or Broadwell (i7-5775C)
2. Competition against other integrated graphics: AMD Ryzen R4000
3. Competition against entry level graphics: GT 1030

When comparing these against entry level graphics, the usual consideration is for combined price comparison – what would be the equivalent CPU+GPU combo in price against the integrated graphics solution.

For example, the Core i5-11600K retails for $255. This is very expensive for a processor with integrated graphics – in the past integrated graphics solutions have targeted price points around $100-$160. That being said, AMD’s latest R4000 APUs cost $355, $262 and $170.

Our main data point is a Ryzen 5 2600 paired with a GT1030 2 GB. In normal times, this is a $200 (SEP) processor paired with an $85 graphics card – it has been as low as $120+$70, but currently they sit at $210+$114, which is quite a considerable jump. We also have a Ryzen 9 5950X paired with a GTX 950 2GB (75W) in the results as well.

Please note that some of this data includes notebook data, which was obtained during the loan period for that device. As a result, not all systems were tested on all benchmarks, depending on when the benchmarks were added to our testing (or were available at the time).

How Low is Too Low?

As part of the research for this article, we sent a poll out on social media regarding low framerate experiences have changes the way that users enjoy the games they play. The expectation was that a number of us have at some point enjoyed gaming on a complete potato of a system, reducing resolution or quality to match the budget hardware at our hands. Personally I remember playing Counter Strike on dual-core AMD 2011 netbook processors, with the low resolution texture pack, at 15 FPS at a LAN party. It was glorious. The results of the poll were as follows:

What's the lowest average FPS you've had where you've still been happy to play? Also, which game? [POLL]

— 𝐷𝑟. 𝐼𝑎𝑛 𝐶𝑢𝑡𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑠 (@IanCutress) May 4, 2021

As was perhaps expected, users gravitate towards the highest frame rates possible. Modern hardware is that good with common eSports titles that a minimum 30 FPS becomes a standard for a lot of people, especially those who have never known the hardship of old processor gaming. However, the comments were quite telling. Here are a selected few:

• Old laptop played Minecraft at 15-20 fps with low resolution. Those were the days
• A decade ago I was happy about anything above 10 FPS. Nowadays, bare minimum of 15, but usually 20-25 feels playable
• Played Witcher 3 on medium 1080p with a 960M, running 27-32 FPS. Manageable
• 15 FPS in Starcraft 2, I was still happy to play on a laptop with integrated graphics
• I can play Genshin Impact or FFXIV at fixed 30 FPS as long as it's low latency
• Assassin's Creed unity, 25 FPS felt ok
• Tomb Raider 2013 at 20-25 FPS at 768p on a 940M, I really liked those graphics
• 18 FPS in ETS2 was fine for two years, then I got a desktop
• Some games are locked to 25 FPS anyway, like San Andreas on PC
• 20-ish FPS on any Earth Defence Force Game
• Civilization 6 at about 30 FPS
• Ark Survival at 20-23 FPS
• Pretty much any console game over the last 10 years is 25-30 FPS anyway
• I used to play Black Ops 2 at 1024x768 at 14 FPS
• 21 FPS with Left 4 Dead 2, on a laptop 10 years ago at a LAN party!
• Diablo 2 is 25 FPS, so somewhere around that
• Crysis on an 8600GT, 20 FPS and no regrets

There are of course a similar amount of comments decrying anything below 60 frames per second on anything, although there do seem to be a contingent happy to play the right game at a less-than-ideal frame rate, and it really depends on the game. This is going to be important for the following graphs. We test best-case frame rates and modern resolution settings.

Gaming Tests: Civilization 6

Originally penned by Sid Meier and his team, the Civilization series of turn-based strategy games are a cult classic, and many an excuse for an all-nighter trying to get Gandhi to declare war on you due to an integer underflow.

Civilization 6 is one of the few titles where the enhanced core count and frequency of the Comet Lake processors puts it above Tiger Lake (1185G7), despite the Tiger Lake processor having substantially more execution units, higher graphics frequency, and better memory bandwidth. That being said, it sits behind most AMD modern APUs, mobile and desktop.

Gaming Tests: Deus Ex Mankind Divided

Deus Ex:MD combines first-person, stealth, and role-playing elements, with the game set in Prague, dealing with themes of transhumanism, conspiracy theories, and a cyberpunk future. The game allows the player to select their own path (stealth, gun-toting maniac) and offers multiple solutions to its puzzles.

At the lower settings, Rocket Lake sits above Comet Lake and Broadwell by a good margin, and is very much playable with 5th Percentiles above 30 frames per second. At the higher settings though, there aren't many options for playability.

Gaming Tests: Final Fantasy XIV

In 2019, FFXIV launched its Shadowbringers expansion, and an official standalone benchmark was released at the same time for users to understand what level of performance they could expect. Much like the FF15 benchmark we’ve been using for a while, this test is a long 7-minute scene of simulated gameplay within the title. There are a number of interesting graphical features, and it certainly looks more like a 2019 title than a 2010 release, which is when FF14 first came out.

Final Fantasy loves Intel processors here, and the average frame rates at the lower settings are easily playable. However at 1080p Maximum, the AMD APUs pull ahead while Rocket Lake struggles to be playable.

Gaming Tests: Final Fantasy XV

The game uses the internal Luminous Engine, and as with other Final Fantasy games, pushes the imagination of what we can do with the hardware underneath us. To that end, FFXV was one of the first games to promote the use of ‘video game landscape photography’, due in part to the extensive detail even at long range but also with the integration of NVIDIA’s Ansel software, that allowed for super-resolution imagery and post-processing effects to be applied.

All of our setups were below 5 FPS for our high resolution test, so we're saying with 720p here. At around 15-17 FPS, the Rocket Lake graphics are just about playable, although it will feel like an old time system. Anything from AMD at this point is more playable, and the Tiger Lake option showcases how much better X^e-LP can be with enough units and frequency.

Gaming Tests: World of Tanks

World of Tanks is set in the mid-20th century and allows players to take control of a range of military based armored vehicles. The game offers multiple entry points including a free-to-play element as well as allowing players to pay a fee to open up more features.

For World of Tanks, everything is very playable at these frame rates, however Rocket Lake is behind Broadwell, Intel's 5th Gen Core processor with eDRAM.

Gaming Tests: Borderlands 3

The fourth title of the franchise, Borderlands 3 expands the universe beyond Pandora and its orbit, with the set of heroes (plus those from previous games) now cruising the galaxy looking for vaults and the treasures within. Popular Characters like Tiny Tina, Claptrap, Lilith, Dr. Zed, Zer0, Tannis, and others all make appearances as the game continues its cel-shaded design but with the graphical fidelity turned up.

Borderlands 3 is our biggest min/max difference when comparing the 11900K to the 10900K. At the lower settings the Rocket Lake 11900K is actually behind the Comet Lake 10900K by a couple of percent. At the higher resolution and quality settings Rocket Lake is ahead by almost double, however it is in no-way actually playable. Users looking to crank up the quality are going to be looking for discrete graphics for sure.

Gaming Tests: F1 2019

The 2019 edition of the game features all 21 circuits on the calendar for that year, and includes a range of retro models and DLC focusing on the careers of Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna. This edition revamps up the Career mode, with features such as in-season driver swaps coming into the mix, and the quality of the graphics this time around is also superb, even at 4K low or 1080p Ultra.

F1 2019 is certainly a step up grom generation to generation on the desktop, and at the low settings is able to pip Broadwell into something playable at 60 FPS. The higher resolution testing is less playable, on par with a laptop with a basic MX150 graphics card, but very much behind any of AMD's desktop offerings and mobile Tiger Lake.

Gaming Tests: Far Cry 5

The fifth title in Ubisoft's Far Cry series lands us right into the unwelcoming arms of an armed militant cult in Montana, one of the many middles-of-nowhere in the United States. With a charismatic and enigmatic adversary, gorgeous landscapes of the northwestern American flavor, and lots of violence, it is classic Far Cry fare. Graphically intensive in an open-world environment, the game mixes in action and exploration with a lot of configurability.

At the lower settings, The 11th Gen series shows a good generation-on-generation jump, but still sits behind Intel's 5th Gen Broadwell. As the settings are ramped up however, Broadwell drops well behind, but the low frame rate from Intel still isn't enough to make it playable.

Gaming Tests: Strange Brigade

Strange Brigade is based in 1903’s Egypt, and follows a story which is very similar to that of the Mummy film franchise. This particular third-person shooter is developed by Rebellion Developments which is more widely known for games such as the Sniper Elite and Alien vs Predator series. The game follows the hunt for Seteki the Witch Queen, who has arose once again and the only ‘troop’ who can ultimately stop her.

Gears Tactics

Remembering the original Gears of War brings back a number of memories – some good, and some involving online gameplay. The latest iteration of the franchise was launched as I was putting this benchmark suite together, and Gears Tactics is a high-fidelity turn-based strategy game with an extensive single player mode. As with a lot of turn-based games, there is ample opportunity to crank up the visual effects.

While there are  good gen-on-gen increases, Rocket Lake sits best as a low resolution option for Gears.

Red Dead Redemption 2

Building on the success of the original RDR, the second incarnation came to Steam in December 2019 having been released on consoles first. The PC version takes the open-world cowboy genre into the start of the modern age, with a wide array of impressive graphics and features that are eerily close to reality.

We didn't put the 1080p result here, because they were all very bad, but if you're happy to squint at the screen at what might be a cowboy and a horse, Rocket Lake is certainly playable, enough to tweak a few options higher.

Grand Theft Auto V

The highly anticipated iteration of the Grand Theft Auto franchise hit the shelves on April 14th 2015, with both AMD and NVIDIA to help optimize the title. At this point GTA V is super old, but still super useful as a benchmark – it is a complicated test with many features that modern titles today still struggle with. With rumors of a GTA 6 on the horizon, I hope Rockstar make that benchmark as easy to use as this one is.

GTA to the max is a slideshow, but very playable at 720p Low. The 11900K is happy to sit above Tiger Lake by the slimmest of margins for a rare spot of glory.

 

Conclusions

No-one ever said that integrated graphics solutions had to be good. Nonetheless there is always the desire for something better, something higher performance, and something suitable for end-users. At the beginning of the era of integrated graphics, the focus was on simply providing something basic for 2D work - applications on an operating system and no real graphics rendering to mention. That solution is simple enough, however the demand on integrated graphics has grown over time, especially as the demands we put on our devices have also grown.

A modern system, especially a commercial system or one designed for work, has to do it all. Anyone not working in graphics might depend on a integrated solution to navigate complex arty web interfaces for the tool they use, or rely upon the acceleration features now baked into those platforms. Also perhaps, from time to time, some mild gaming use as well, if not outright using the compute features of the graphics for transcoding or AI. These demands are most heavily focused on mobile platforms, and as a result mobile platforms from Intel tend to get the best integrated graphics solutions, especially in thin-and-light designs where a discrete graphics solution is too power hungry. Intel's mobile Tiger Lake-U series offers a sizeable 96 execution units of the latest generation graphics architecture, compared to the desktop processors we are testing today, that only have 32.

So what use is a desktop processor with integrated graphics?

AMD and Intel both have product lines with integrated graphics. From Intel, its integrated graphics is in almost everything that Intel sells for consumers. AMD used to be that way in the mid-2010s, until it launched Ryzen, and now we have separate CPU-only and CPU+Graphics options. This is where the company philosophy differs.

AMD's desktop processors with integrated graphics are primarily intended to be a whole system replacement, with users relying on the integrated graphics for all their graphics needs. As a result AMD puts a lot more processing hardware into its integrated graphics solutions for the desktop, and it results in a good gaming experience for entry level gaming.

Intel's route on the otherhand is a bit more basic. The desktop integrated graphics here has two main directions: first, as the basic graphics needed for an office system, or second, more of a fall-back option for when the discrete card doesn't work or fails in more premium desktop systems. The power isn't there for hardcore grunt like gaming of any serious note, but it is certainly enough to cover the basics.

Despite this, with the new X^e-LP graphics solution, Intel has some aces up its sleeve. First is AV1 decoding, which allows users to watch AV1 content without putting stress on the CPU. Second is video encoding accelerationt through QuickSync, which has actually been a part of Intel's graphics for a number of years. Third is a relatively new feature: Intel's 'additional processor' mentality. Normally when a system has a discrete graphics card, the integrated graphics is disabled. But now, with its latest mobile devices for example, when Intel pairs its mobile processor with integrated graphics with a second graphics solution at about the same performance, with the right software Intel allows both graphics to work asynchrouusly on two different problems. The limit to this in the past has been dictating which graphics is the video out rather than simply a compute accelerator, but Intel believes it has worked it out. However, this is relatively little use for gaming, the topic of today.

Results Summary

In this review, we highlighted that Intel has now implemented its new X^e-LP graphics architecture onto its desktop processor line, and tested the new solutions against our traditional CPU gaming test suite. What we saw, in terms of a generational uplift from the i9-10900K to the i9-11900K, is actually quite impressive:

In our 720p testing, there's a clear generational gain across the board for Rocket Lake, and in most cases the games become a lot more playable. The average gain is 39%. If we flip to our gaming results at the higher resolution and settings:

Games with under 10 FPS across the board are left out

For these titles, the average gain is 153%, showing that X^e-LP is certainly a step up regardless of the workload.

The Future of Integrated Graphics

A key talking point about integrated graphics is whether a company should leverage a strong CPU product at the expense of graphics, or aim for something with strong integrated graphics as a more complete chip at the expense of the mid-range graphics market. The console market for example relies fully on integrated graphics designs, especially as it keeps the manufacturing simpler and number of chips lower. But on the desktop space, because discrete graphics are an option (well, when we're not in a mining craze or semiconductor shortage), there seems to be no impetus for companies to do a full fat integrated graphics solution that competes on the same stage as a mid-range graphics card. AMD could do it, but it might overlap with their console agreements, and Intel hasn't done anything serious since Broadwell.

To put a nod to Broadwell, Intel's 5th Gen processor. It was so powerful at integrated graphics at the time, we are still using it today as a comparison point when comparing against other Intel solutions. Broadwell had dedicated 48% of the die area of its top processor to graphics, and for that product it also added some really fast cache memory as well. Intel's focus on integrated graphics as a function of die size has decreased over time, now with Rocket Lake sits at around 20% of the silicon. It hasn't been this low since Intel first introduced its integrated graphics solutions. For that 20%, we get 32 execution units with eight processing cores. Tiger Lake has 96 EUs which total around 33% of overall die size, but has four cores. If Intel was focused on graphics performance in the same way as it was in Broadwell, we might be looking at a 256+ EU solution.

With Intel taking a renewed approach to graphics with its Xe portfolio, stemming from entry up to high performance compute, there is room here for Intel to develop integrated graphics focused solutions. Intel has detailed that it is moving to chiplets with its future mainstream processors under its 'Client 2.0' strategy, and part of that is allowing customers to select how many IP blocks they want of cores, IO, memory, security, and graphics. In the image above, the Gamer option has half of the die area for graphics. This could at the end of the day be a target that could see Intel making desktop integrated graphics a focus again.