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For a long time now, there have only been two games in town if you wanted discreet graphics

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for your PC, AMD or NVIDIA, or one out for 3DFX. But that's changing as the first systems with

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another discreet option are now in the market. I'm talking about Intel's new Iris Xe Max lineup.

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That's right, that's how it's pronounced and that's right, the company most known for strapping

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integrated graphics to their CPUs and calling it a day has now branched out to challenge not only

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AMD in another industry segment, but now NVIDIA in a space they've long dominated.

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But let's be clear, Xe Max is only a starting point for Team Blue, not a total game changer.

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Instead of a beefy GPU that's meant to rival the RTX 3080 or the RX 6800 XT, Intel's first

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discreet offering is a mobile GPU meant primarily for thin and light notebooks. But why? The answer

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is that the chip is being marketed much more toward content creators than gamers.

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Don't get me wrong, you can game on the Xe Max with more aplomb than you could with mobile iGPUs,

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as Intel is touting frame rates between 30 and 45 frames per second in modern,

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graphically intense titles at 1080p, albeit at low to medium settings.

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You see, although the Xe Max is indeed a chip specifically made to be a GPU and not some kind

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of CPU Intel repurposed, it has a rather small die which definitely puts a cap on how much it can

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actually do for gamers. And unlike other solutions we've seen where an integrated GPU can work with

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a discreet chip to render the same frame more quickly like what we saw with Radeon dual graphics,

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Xe Max can't do this with the main CPU, which further limits its appeal as a gaming platform.

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But things should be more interesting on the content creation side.

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Xe Max supports machine learning to speed up rendering tasks, and although we just stated

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that Xe Max can't team up with the iGPU to work on the same frame, the built-in AI can

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delegate separate tasks to the integrated and discreet GPUs more effectively, which could be

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helpful for editors trying to process multiple video clips at the same time, for example.

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Obviously, this isn't as good as getting your work done on a desktop editing rig with dual-slot

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GPUs, but it's not meant to be. One key benefit that Intel is heavily trying to get across to its

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consumers is how its dynamic power sharing can more efficiently allocate power between the CPU,

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the discreet GPU, and integrated graphics. Though exactly how much battery you'll save will

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probably depend a lot on your workload. To be fair to Intel though, they are using low power

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V RAM for additional battery savings, and early reviews indicate that Xe Max looks like a

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significant step up in performance from a typical iGPU for content creators even if you just leave

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the laptop plugged in. However, given the obvious limitations of the chip, it's probably not going

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to blow you away, as those who need to do serious content creation on the road can always just bring

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along a laptop with more powerful internals and plus an AC adapter, unless they're fighting

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serious size and weight limitations. But this is still an important first step for Intel,

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as it's set to release an actual gaming graphics card with modern features like ray tracing support

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sometime in 2021. And with Intel saying that Xe Max rivals entry-level solutions from NVIDIA for

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gaming and beats them in certain rendering tasks, it'll be interesting to see if they can hold

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their own against existing high-end desktop parts, assuming of course people can even get

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their hands on one without buying it from some eBay scalper. So thanks for watching guys, if you

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