Intel Arrow Lake 255H versus AMD Strix Point Ryzen 9 HX 370 in Final Fantasy XIV
I've recently reviewed and tested a Lenovo ThinkBook 14 G8 with Intel Arrow Lake 255H and Topton TOPC with Ryzen 9 HX 370. Those are top-of-the-line mobile chips from Intel and AMD, and the question is - how do they stack up against each other in FFXIV?
Specifications
| Ryzen 9 HX 370 | Intel 7 255H | |
|---|---|---|
| CPU Cores | 4 Zen 5 cores up to 5.1GHz 8 Zen 5c cores up to 3.3 GHz |
6 Lion Cover P-Cores up to 5.1GHz 8 Skymont E-cores up to 4.4GHz 2 Crestmont E-cores (up to 2.5GHz) |
| Max TDP | 54W | 115W |
| iGPU | Radeon 890M | Arc 140T |
You can check direct comparisons on Notebookcheck for the CPUs as well as for iGPUs and as you can see they perform nearly identical overall but with few asterisks here and there.
Benchmarks
Benchmarks were done at 30W TDP for both chips, using 2x16GB SODIMM DDR5 5600MT/s JEDEC RAM kit. The benchmarks were using Standard Laptop
preset (lowest quality settings).
Compared to previous generations, there is a sizable uplift in performance, allowing for playing the game on an iGPU above 30 FPS.
You should also always run the system with dual-channel memory configuration - with two sticks of RAM instead of one:
eGPU benchmarks
For eGPU testing, I used GMKtec RX 7600M XT eGPU connected via OCuLink (PCIe 4.0 x4). This GPU performance is similar to RTX 3060 desktop.
For eGPUs using a display connected to the eGPU (external) offers better performance as the rendered frame doesn't have to be sent back and passed to the iGPU to display it. USB4/Thunderbolt has an additional penalty as the CPU manages all traffic on the interface.
Summary
Both chips perform nearly the same. Ryzen seems to have a bit better CPU performance in this game, while Intel edges out with the iGPU a bit. Actual performance will depend on the device - TDP, cooling assembly, RAM type and configuration, so be sure to check reviews of the device you are considering.
If you want higher fidelity settings, you will have to go for a laptop with a good dedicated graphics card. This game isn't as light as World of Warcraft can be, and the requirements went up with Dawntrail graphics upgrades as well.
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