Comparing: GeForce MX350 [Disk] vs Intel Iris Xe Graphics (80EUs, Tiger Lake) [Disk]

Specification Comparison Table

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Submission Comparison Table

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About Hardware GeForce MX350 [Disk]

The NVIDIA GeForce MX350 is an entry-level GPU designed for thin and light laptops, delivering significant graphics performance improvements over the processor's built-in iGPU. The GPU is based on the Pascal architecture with 640 CUDA Cores, and features 2GB or 4GB of GDDR5 memory with 64-bit bus width. The MX350 is generally used for light graphics tasks such as photo editing, light video, and casual gaming, and provides GPU acceleration for CUDA-enabled creative applications.

But in this particular test, a portion of the video memory (VRAM) on the GeForce MX350 was configured as a VRAMDisk. The concept of a VRAMDisk is similar to a RAMDisk, but it uses the VRAM of the GPU as a super-fast storage medium. VRAMDisk allows the creation of temporary, high-speed drives that can be utilized for technical experiments, speed testing, or graphics caching in certain scenarios. Although its capacity is limited and volatile (data is lost on reboot), the high bandwidth and low latency of VRAM provide compelling performance in certain contexts.

The tests were conducted on a Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3i 14ITL6 laptop with Intel Core i5-1135G7 processor, 12GB DDR4 3200MHz dual channel RAM, and Windows 11 22H2 operating system. The VRAMDisk was created from a 2GB GeForce MX350 GPU, with virtual disk sizes of 1GB and 1.5GB, using special software called GPU RAM Drive.

Benchmark results with CrystalDiskMark recorded read speeds of 1113.58 MB/s and write speeds of 995.48 MB/s, showing the high bandwidth potential of VRAM as a temporary storage medium. Although the performance does not match DDR4-based RAMDisks, VRAMDisks remain a unique and attractive solution for certain technical purposes, especially for users who want to utilize idle VRAM for fast I/O processes. With its dedicated laptop GPU form factor and PCIe x4 Gen 3.0 interface, the GeForce MX350 VRAMDisk opens up new exploration possibilities in the world of experimental graphics-based high-speed storage.

Device test (testbed):

Device: Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3i 14ITL6
CPU: i5 1135G7
RAM: 12GB DDR4 3200MHz Dual Channel (8+4)
OS: Windows 11 22H2

Friday, 06 August 2021 04:34:19 | Update: 1 month ago

About Hardware Intel Iris Xe Graphics (80EUs, Tiger Lake) [Disk]

Intel Iris Xe Graphics (80EUs, Tiger Lake) is the integrated graphics solution (iGPU) of the 11th generation of Intel Core processors, specifically the Tiger Lake series. With 80 Execution Units (EUs) and support for Intel's latest graphics architecture, Iris Xe is capable of delivering significantly better performance than previous generations, including in terms of lightweight graphics rendering, 4K video playback, and casual gaming. Another advantage is its excellent power efficiency as it is directly integrated in the CPU, making it ideal for thin and power-saving laptops.

In this test, Iris Xe Graphics was configured to utilize part of its shared memory as a VRAMDisk. The VRAMDisk concept allows the use of a portion of VRAM-which in iGPUs like Iris Xe comes from the main system RAM-as high-speed storage. While not as fast as physical RAM-based RAMDisks, VRAMDisks on iGPUs still offer very high read/write speeds, mainly due to the optimization of the graphics architecture and the wide memory bandwidth.

The test was conducted on a Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3i 14ITL6, with an Intel Core i5-1135G7 processor, 12GB DDR4 3200MHz dual channel RAM, and Windows 11 22H2 operating system. Based on data from dxdiag, the dynamically available VRAM reaches 6GB, and in this test, 2GB was allocated as VRAMDisk using GPU RAM Drive software.

Benchmark results from CrystalDiskMark show read speeds of 2758.52 MB/s and write speeds of 2109.43 MB/s. These speeds are significantly higher than SATA SSDs and even close to mid-range NVMe SSDs, making VRAMDisks on iGPUs an attractive experimental solution for temporary data caching, storage performance testing or other specialized scenarios. With a 128-bit bus width and support for 3200MHz DDR4 memory, Iris Xe VRAMDisk shows that even integrated graphics can be creatively utilized for high-speed storage tasks.

Device test (testbed):

Device: Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3i 14ITL6
CPU: i5 1135G7
RAM: 12GB DDR4 3200MHz Dual Channel (8+4)
OS: Windows 11 22H2

Friday, 06 August 2021 04:34:19 | Update: 1 month ago