Shockingly enough, Tiger Lake notebook with Iris Xe graphic is faster than Nvidia’s discrete Geforce MX 350 as well as AMD’s latest Renoir Ryzen 7 4800U integrated GPU. 

Intel has been working together with Blizzard on Variable Rate Shading (VRS), and the feature was implemented in the latest World of Warcraft game engine. The feature is implemented in World of Warcraft 9.0 and has been available for the last few weeks. The expansion World of Warcraft Shadowlands, also supporting VRS, is set to show its face early next week.

World of Warcraft uses Variable Rate Shading (VRS) dynamically, so there is no on or off switch in the settings. If the game detects hardware capable of VRS, it will use it. All the test machines were using the same 1080p low settings.

1080p Variable Rate Shading 

Intel’s Tiger Lake reference notebook is powered by Core i7 1185G7 processor and Xe graphics, 16 GB LPDDR4x Ram, 1TB Samsung SSD and a 14-inch screen. An AMD system used in the same test is the Lenovo Yoga 14 with Ryzen 4800U, while the Geforce MX350 system is a Lenovo machine with Ice Lake Core i7 1065G7 and Geforce MX350. All systems were comparable in specs.

Intel’s Tiger Lake reference notebook scored 121.1 FPS with (VRS) Variable Rate Shading on. The Lenovo system with Ice Lake and Geforce MX 350 was the runner up, with significantly lower 96.1 FPS. AMD’s Lenovo Yoga 14 powered by Ryzen 4800U only scored 72.3 FPS. At this time, neither Nvidia nor AMD support Variable Rate Shading.

Intel Xe 121.1 FPS vs Ryzen 4800U 72.3 and MX350 96.1 FPS

The 121.1 FPS is one dramatic difference, as Intel’s Xe graphics is 67.5 percent faster than AMD’s best-integrated offering. Intel Xe graphics lead even against Nvidia’s Geforce MX350 by a healthy 26 percent.

Intel went from zero to hero with Tiger Lake and Xe integrated, enabling great casual 1080p gaming on an everyday working laptop.

So if you are passionate about World of Warcraft, a Tiger Lake powered work notebook might be your best bet.