Intel Releases Xe Max Graphics, Details Power Sharing and Deep Link

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They're releasing today in China

Intel is launching its Iris Xe Max graphics in thin-and-light laptops, starting today with launches in China. They will first appear in the Acer Swift 3x, Dell Inspiron 15 7000 2-in-1 and Asus VivoBook Flip TP470. These laptops will come to the United States in the coming weeks.

Execution Units 96
Frequency 1.65GHz
Lithography 10nm Superfin
Graphics Memory Type LPDDR4x
Graphis Capacity 4GB 68 GB/s
PCI Express Gen4
Medida 2 Multi-Format Codec (MFX Engines
Number of Displays Supported 4
Graphics Features Variable rate shading, adaptive sync, Async compute (Beta)
DirectX Support 12.1
OpenGL Support 4.6
OpenCL Support 2

Formerly codenamed DG1, the chip has 96 EUs, a frequency up to 1.65GHz and, yes, LPDDR4x memory for power savings. Rumors of the DG1 test vehicle using 3GB of GDDR6 were, apparently, incorrect. Instead, Xe Max uses a 128-bit interface with the lower power memory to ultimately end up with more bandwidth than competing solutions like Nvidia's GeForce MX350.

The company is aiming the Xe Max laptops at content creators. Intel is using its ownership over both the Tiger Lake CPU and the discrete GPU in a feature called Deep Link, combining the processing with a software framework to boost performance.

This includes dynamic power sharing between the CPU (with the integrated Iris Xe graphics) and the discrete Iris Xe Max GPU. In a Handbrake encode, Intel claimed the 28W CPU in the Acer Swift 3x easily bested an Intel reference system combining a Core i7-1185G7 with an Nvidia GeForce MX350. It also outperformed when enhancing details in Adobe Lightroom against a Lenovo Slim 7 with a 10th Gen Core i7 and MX350.The power sharing sounds somewhat similar to AMD's SmartShift tech. 

Additionally, Deep Link lets the processors share Xe graphics, DP4a instructions, and Xe media encoders. In a demo of Topaz Gigapixel AI, Intel showed the Xe Max and Tiger Lake upscaling images with OpenVINO and DLBoost DP4a far faster than Ice Lake with an MX350 using Tensorflow. The combined Iris Xe and Iris Xe Max, in the demo, finished faster than the competitive laptop completed a single image.

The combined media encoding should allow for up to 1.78x faster encoding than using an RTX 2080. Going up against a Gigabyte Aero 15 with a Core i9-109080HK and an RTX 2080 Super Max-Q in Handbrake, the Acer Swift 3x transcoded ten 1-minute clips from 4K/60fps AVC to 1080p / 60 fps HEVC faster. Intel says this is thanks to Intel's QuickSync with the integrated and discrete graphics working together simultaneously, compared to Nvidia's NVENC. 
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