Intel Arrow Lake 255H versus AMD Strix Point Ryzen 9 HX 370 in World of Warcraft
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 World of Warcraft?
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.
Ardenweald is the most GPU-demanding test, while the mass combat test on mode 7 (high settings) has a lot of particle effects, which is a bottlenecking factor for iGPUs. In those cases, the Intel SoC pulls ahead, which could indicate that Ryzen has a better CPU and Intel better iGPU for this game.
This is better visualized as relative performance on the radar chart:
Intel 255H - Lenovo ThinkBook 14 G8 benchmarks
On high settings, GPU-intensive zones will be below 60 FPS, but on lower settings, the framerate will improve noticeably:
It's also worth noting that you should always use dual-channel RAM configuration - 2 sticks of RAM instead of one - 1x16 vs 2x16GB RAM is 25% performance difference.
Ryzen HX 370 - Topton TOPC benchmarks
For the Ryzen APU I've tested the game at two TDP settings - 30W and 52W - large power increase gives only a small performance uplift:
eGPU benchmarks
For eGPU testing, I used GMKtec RX 7600M XT eGPU connected via OCuLink (PCIe 4.0 x4) and with an external display connected to the eGPU to maximize performance from such a setup. This GPU performance is similar to RTX 3060 desktop.
World of Warcraft doesn't need as much VRAM as a lot of modern AAA games, but it can be picky when it comes to performance. eGPU on internal/laptop screen barely sees any performance uplift, while external Thunderbolt and then OCuLink show much bigger performance uplift. It looks like this game is sensitive to system latency. Rendering on eGPU, then moving that to iGPU to display it takes time.
The Combat benchmark will be CPU (single core) limited. Lower-tier/iGPUs can also limit combat due to high particle effects density. Ardenweald is a GPU-intensive zone, while Bastion and Dazar'alor harbor views are less, but have more complex geometries visible.
And a relative chart versus the best performing OCuLink setup. You get around 25% more FPS when moving from iGPU to eGPU with an external screen, and then another 25% if you use OCuLink over Thunderbolt.
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.
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