Intel Lunar Lake: iGPU Xe2 will be 50% faster than first generation

In a closed press presentation at Computex 2024, Intel revealed details of its Lunar Lake processors. Here, we take a look at how the company is working on integrated, X-based graphics^e2, promising to be 50% better than the iGPU of Meteor Lake CPUs.

This level of performance improvement is due to a greater amount of cache, larger ray tracing units, new XMX cores for AI processing, in addition to second generation Xe cores.

The high-end Lunar Lake SKU will be equipped with 8 X cores^e2, the same configuration present in Meteor Lake CPUs, something that reinforces the generational leap in relation to the first generation iGPU Xe. Each core is accompanied by a ray tracing unit, also totaling 8 units.

Intel Xe2 iGPU Performance

The improvements implemented in the X graphics^e2 in Lunar Lake processors leads to 12x more performance, depending on the processing, compared to the previous generation present in Intel Core Ultra 100. An example is ray tracing, where Lunar Lake delivers up to 1.6x more performance.

Another highlight is the X engine^e Matrix Extensions (XMX) that leads to a maximum peak of 67 TOPs in Int8 operations. Along with the new cores present in Lunar Lake CPUs, in addition to a more powerful NPU, Intel guarantees that it will deliver up to 120 TOPs of AI performance, more than AMD promises with its recently announced Ryzen AI 300.

Regarding display support, Intel X integrated graphics^e2 will support up to three 4K60 HDR screens, one 8K60, or even 1080p or 1440 at 360 Hz. In terms of connections, support is for HDMI 2.1, DisplayPort 2.1 and eDP 1.5.

These processors will also bring a new encoder: VVC. It brings improvements in both data compression capacity and final image quality, managing to compress the video by 10% more compared to the recent AV1. Furthermore, this codec also provides sharper characters in the image.

Beyond Integrated Graphics^e2, Intel also presented changes in the organization of its cores, which marks the departure of the LP E-Cores, the very low consumption cores present in Meteor Lake, in addition to the capabilities aimed at processing Artificial Intelligence with fourth generation NPU.

Source: Intel