Intel Xe2 Lunar Lake Graphics Performance Disappoints On Linux

The Windows 11 vs. Linux benchmarks on the Intel Core Ultra 256V Lunar Lake laptop reinforced that there are Linux driver issues at play. With these tests I ran various lighter-weight software native to each platform in ruling out overhead of Steam Play (Proton / Wine) or the like. Across all of the graphics tests Windows 11 was running much better than Linux on this Lunar Lake laptop at launch.

Hopefully there are some known driver optimization ideas by the Intel Linux graphics driver engineers. For now the Lunar Lake Xe2 graphics performance under Linux was disappointing with coming in slower than Meteor Lake. While the Core Ultra 256V power consumption was much lower than the Core Ultra 7 155H, it didn't really come out attractive up against the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 with its typically leading performance and power efficiency. Intel was promoting the Arc Xe2 graphics with Lunar Lake as being a 31% improvement over the Arc Graphics found with the Core Ultra 7 155H... That wasn't anything close to reality on Linux but rather trailing Meteor Lake.

Stay tuned for more Linux benchmarks of the Xe2 graphics to come as any kernel or Mesa optimizations evolve. Linux CPU benchmarks of the Core Ultra 7 256V Lunar Lake SoC are currently being worked on and will be published later this week on Phoronix.