Chrome OS is officially 10 years old and how far we have come. Only a few short years ago, the only major decisions a user had to make when purchasing a Chromebook were form factor, image quality, and internal. These days, there is much more to consider because Chromebooks have come into their own. Users can choose from a plethora of options and get a device that is catered for according to their exact needs. You can get a Chromebook with a fingerprint sensor or one with a removable keyboard. You can buy a device with a guaranteed, rechargeable stylus or buy the pen of your choice thanks to the emerging USI platform. Buyer can choose between devices powered by ARM, AMD Ryzen or the latest Core CPUs from Intel. No doubt about it, Chrome OS options have expanded exponentially over the last few years.
Of all the new and emerging options available for Chrome OS, there are few that excite me as much as the next generation Chromebooks powered by Intel’s Tiger Lake CPUs. The CPU should be an improvement over the current and capable Comet Lake processors that have proven themselves very powerful in devices like the Acer Spin 713, Samsung Galaxy Chromebook and HP Chromebook C1030. Where the 11th generation Tiger Lake chips will shine, it’s in the GPU section. Early comparisons of Intel’s new integrated Xe graphics show a GPU that can go very well up to par with some dedicated mid-range graphics processing units. This is great news for Chrome OS. For the longest time, Chromebooks rely only on the standard UHD graphics located in Intel’s CPUs, and the integrated graphics are, well. Now that Chrome OS has integrated Linux applications and Crostini has access to the PC’s GPU, Intel’s Xe graphics are becoming a major player in the Chrome OS ecosystem. One of our customers recently shared a YouTube video of a Core i7 Tiger Lake CPU being tested on a Windows laptop, and I was excited to see how well this integrated GPU actually performs. Look at that.
Advertisements
So, as you can see, the new Xe iGPU is no slouch. No, it’s not an animal GPU and it’s going to choke on some of your heavier games, but that’s not the point I’m trying to make. Power users who want to take full advantage of Linux on Chrome OS are looking for more power, and these XeiGPUs could very well provide the power and possibly open the door to using powerful applications like the Davinci Resolve video editor or software for the compiling codes. What’s more, the Borealis project would be launched at some point in 2021. It will bring the full Steam gaming platform to Chrome OS, and many of these games require more GPU power than is offered in current Intel UHD graphics.
I say this all because I noticed something intriguing when I looked at the ASUS website this morning. Currently, ASUS is the only OEM to officially announce a Tiger Lake Chromebook. The ASUS Chromebook CX9 should be one of the first Tiger Lake flagships to hit the market sometime in the second quarter with the expected launch. You can bet that other computer manufacturers will not be far behind. Anyway, when I look at this new Chromebook, I notice something on the spec page. The CX9 offers an 11th Gen Core i3 or Core i5 CPU.
- Intel® Core ™ i3-1115G4 processor 3.0 GHz (6M memory, up to 4.1 GHz, 2 cores)
- Intel® Core 5 i5-1135G7 processor 2.4 GHz (8M memory, up to 4.2 GHz, 4 cores)
I suspected that the integrated graphics on these two slides would be the same or similar. I was wrong. Among the graphics sections, ASUS lists the Irix Xe graphics, but they also include UHD graphics. At this point, I started to get very confused. So I started doing a little research and this is what I found. The Tiger Lake Core i3 chips do have Xe graphics, but they are Iris Xe G4, while the Core i7 and higher are Iris Xe G7. Intel has decided to continue labeling the lesser GPU than UHD graphics, and as I discovered, there is a good reason. The GPU on all the Core i3 processors boasts significantly less power than the Iris Xe Graphics G7 found on the Core i5 chip. I have tracked down some benchmarks from laptomedia.com and you can see below that there is a clear difference in the 3DMark benchmarks between the two iGPUs. According to the website, the actual performance improvements for the G7 GPU range from 10% to 40%. This is a serious leap.
Why it matters
For the average Chromebook user, these gains are unlikely to make much of a difference if you continue to use your device as it is now. If the current generation Comet Lake chips offer you everything in the horsepower section, the Tiger Lake Core i3 will definitely do what you need. If you like me and want to harness the power of Intel’s Xe graphics for Linux applications and games, you’ll probably want to take a look at the Core i5 model. Not only will you get GPU performance, but the Core i5 is also a quad-core chip, while the Core i3 only contains two cores. The Core i5 CPU alone, as we saw with Comet Lake, should easily blow the Core i3 out of the water. The addition of the more powerful GPU will make the more sophisticated model a must for those who want to push Chrome OS to its extreme.
To sum up, it really serves as a public announcement. While I’m sure there are many who knew all the differences between the two Intel GPUs, I did not and I would be doing our readers a disservice if I did not warn them of the differences. It will be very easy to purchase one of these new Core i3 Chromebooks and think that you are getting the best graphics boards that Intel has to offer, only to discover that this is not the case. When these devices are finally on the shelves, we will take an in-depth dive to test the gap between the two GPUs to help you make the best purchasing decision based on your personal needs. That’s all.
Advertisements