AMD Vs Intel Integrated GPUs: Is 2022 The Year Of APUs?

CES 2022 was filled with big announcements from team red, green, and blue. While NVIDIA launched their most affordable RTX 30 series GPU -- the RTX 3050, Intel and AMD launched an entire range of APUs (processors with CPU and GPU). Is this an alternative solution to the global GPU shortage? Can we really game on the integrated GPUs on Intel and AMD processors?

AMD Went Big With Ryzen 6000 Series CPUs

With the announcement of the Ryzen 6000 series of CPUs, AMD, for the first time ever has replaced vega-class GPU with RDNA2 GPU. Do note that, the company uses the same RDAN2 architecture on console processors (PS4 and Xbox Series X) and even on the high-end Radeon RXX 6000 series of GPUs.

Most of the APUs in the Ryzen 6000 series of processors come with RDNA2 graphics, featuring 12 compute units (CUs) with up to 2.4GHz clock speed. AMD claims that the integrated GPUs on the Ryzen 6000 series processor can match the performance of the GPUs like NVIDIA MX570 while consuming less power.

Hence, you should be able to game on laptops with the Ryzen 6000 series APUs at 1080p medium graphics settings on most AAA titles without any issue. AMD also claims to have made several optimizations to offer good performance on laptops with Ryzen 6000 series processors even when the laptop is not plugged in.

Intel Stuck With Iris Xe Graphics

While Intel has made pretty big improvements when it comes to the integrated graphics card, the company has announced a dedicated ARC lineup of GPUs. As we have tested on the previous generation Intel integrated Iris Xe graphics, the Iris Xe graphics on the 12th Gen Intel Core mobile processor should be able to handle high-end games at 720p resolution with medium graphics settings.

Meant For Ultrabooks?

Though the performance of integrated GPUs has up over the last few years, they are still nowhere as powerful as dedicated GPUs. Hence, you will only see the benefits of these GPUs on thin-and-light ultrabooks which come without a dedicated graphics card.

The improved integrated graphics card will enable users to game on the go. Though this might not solve the global GPU shortage issue, it will at least buy you time before one could buy an actual GPU to game on.