Tested: Intel's Arrow Lake 140T iGPU mostly maintains an edge over AMD's older 880m

Feb 11, 2025 - 04:00

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Tested: Intel's Arrow Lake 140T iGPU mostly maintains an edge over AMD's older 880m

(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)

Late last year, our extensive testing showed that Intel's Lunar Lake Arc 140V integrated graphics outperformed AMD's top-end 890M integrated silicon (driver concerns and software aside) by an average of 7% over 27 tested games

. Now that Intel has launched its Arrow Lake mobile parts, we've spent some time testing an Intel-provided MSI Prestige 16 AI Evo laptop running an Intel Core Ultra 9 285H, to see if Intel's integrated performance edge still holds. And in a broad sense, the answer is yes. The Arc 140T iGPU in the 285H (despite being based on the older Xe+ architecture rather than the Xe2 of Lunar Lake's 140V) maintains a slight edge over AMD's 880M, which we also recently re-tested in MSI's Prestige A16 AI+ laptop for comparison. But things aren't cut and dry once you drop below 1080p.

Also, AMD still leads on drivers and software for gaming, so you might have a better overall gaming experience if you opt for AMD. And really, while most games should broadly be playable at reduced settings and sub-1080p resolutions, those at all serious about on-the-go gaming should still strongly consider stepping up to a laptop with dedicated graphics, or perhaps something built around AMD's flagship

Strix Halo

, which the company says offers up to 1.4x the performance of the 140V iGPU in Intel's Core Ultra 9 288V.

Below, we'll look at the specs of our two MSI Prestige test laptops. Then we'll delve into our limited gaming test results across five titles and see how the two similarly configured systems stack up in gaming, as well as in CPU performance and battery life.

Note that we also managed to re-test Lunar Lake's 140V graphics in an Asus Zenbook S14 and AMD's flagship Strix Point iGPU, the 890M, inside a Zenbook S16. These tests were run right before the deadline for this article and are in different laptop chassis, with specs that vary more than the two MSI Prestige laptops. So we aren't going to comment on these results. They're just in our charts below for context.

Swipe to scroll horizontally

Row 0 - Cell 0	MSI Prestige 16 AI Evo	MSI Prestige A16 AI+ A3HMG
CPU	Intel Core Ultra 9 285H	AMD Ryzen AI 9 365
Graphics	Intel Arc 140T	AMD Radeon 880M
GPU Max Frequency	2.35 GHz	2.9 GHz
Memory	32GB 7500	32GB 7500
Display	2560x1600	2560x1600
Battery	99.9 Whr	82 Whr
Power Adapter	140W	100W
Operating System	Windows 11 Pro	Windows 11 Home
Dimensions	14.11 x 10.02 x 0.75	14.09 x 10.18 x 0.68307087 inches
Weight	3.31 pounds	4.19
Price as configured	Row 11 - Cell 1	$1,279

Gaming Tests: Intel Core Ultra 285H / Arc 140T versus AMD Ryzen AI 9 365 / Radeon 880M

Given time constraints, we couldn't test a wide swathe of games so we focused on some titles that we use for laptop testing and ordered them in the charts below based on when the games were released. As you'll see, some less-demanding titles that are several years old run pretty well even at high settings. But newer games will force you to drop below 1080p and dial down the detail. We aren't going to bother reporting performance at the laptops' native 2560x1600 resolution, because neither integrated chip got anywhere close to playability while pushing that many pixels.

Core Ultra 9 285H GPU performance Shadow of the Tomb Raider

This 2018 franchise title gives Intel's GPU its first win, though the results are close. The 3 FPS lead the 140T holds over AMD's 880M at 1080p is at least reasonably definitive, but stepping down to 720p for more playable frame rates, there's a single-frame difference between the two competitors. These results are an average of three runs, but that's still within general benchmark variance.

Intel Arrow Lake GPU comparison Borderlands 3

Using a 2019-era title that wasn't particularly GPU-demanding when it was new, it's not exactly a surprise that both GPUs here flirt with 30fps at 1080p in Borderlands 3, and the Intel laptop has a nearly 2 FPS edge there. But interestingly, when dropping down to 720p, the AMD silicon pulls ahead by about 6.5 FPS.

Intel Arrow Lake GPU comparison Cyberpunk 2077

Moving forward in terms of time and difficulty, we get to Cyberpunk 2077, where we had to turn off ray tracing entirely and drop the settings down to low to stay well out of single-digit territory. This test is a mixed bag for Intel's chip, where it pulls three FPS ahead at 1080p but again falls behind by 8 FPS at 720p – which is what you'll probably want to stick to with this title if you want anything approaching smooth results on modern integrated graphics.

The 2022 strategy title, Total War: Warhammer III is one title where Intel's 140T has a clear advantage. It beats the AMD 880M in our MSI test laptop by 2 FPS at 720p and an impressive 13 FPS at 1080p.

Last up is last year's hit, Black Myth: Wukong, which wasn't exactly smooth on either iGPU, even when we dropped our typical test settings down from Cinematic to the Medium preset. Intel's silicon turned in a 7 FPS edge over AMD at 1080p, but once again, dropping the resolution down a more playable 720p saw AMD's 880M pull to just a few FPS behind Intel's result. These results show that, while Intel's integrated graphics tend to perform better overall, things are going to vary between titles, especially when gaming below 1080p.

It also shows that modern demanding games are already pushing these integrated chips to their gaming limits. You'll likely be able to play most games without dedicated graphics for now at reduced settings and resolutions. But before long, future titles may leave you wishing you'd invested in a true gaming laptop with dedicated graphics.

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A quick look at CPU performance and battery life

I was curious to see whether AMD's advantage in some of our gaming tests at 720p could be an indicator that the Ryzen AI 9 365 might have an edge over the Core Ultra 9 285H on the CPU side. But that doesn't seem to be the case, as you can see below, where we compared the two MSI Prestige laptops in a few of our productivity benchmarks.

Starting with the Geekbench 6 synthetic CPU benchmark, the AMD Ryzen 9 365-based laptop is competitive in the single-core test, falling just 1.59% behind the Core Ultra 9 285H in the MSI Prestige 16 AI Evo. But on the multi-core test, Intel's 16 cores and 16 threads managed to best AMD's 10 cores and 20 threads by 20.62%.

Shifting to our real-world Handbrake test, where we transcode a 4K video file to 1080p, Intel's lead is 24 seconds or just under 10%. That's a win for Intel and Arrow Lake. But keep in mind that we're comparing mid-2024 AMD silicon to an Intel chip that's arriving on the scene in February of 2025.

Battery Life

Our battery test is a mix of web browsing, video streaming, and graphical tests with the screen brightness set to 150 nits. So it's not an indication of gaming performance, but it's still a key consideration for any laptop.

Once again, the Intel-based machine is the clear leader here, offering up four extra hours of unplugged power in our test. But don't read much into those numbers as an indication of power efficiency. According to MSI's specs, the battery in the Intel-based Prestige (99.9 Whr) is 21.9% larger than the (82 Whr) battery in the AMD model. Still, the Intel laptop did get 36% longer run time, so it seems likely Intel does have some advantage in power efficiency, but we'll have to test more Arrow Lake laptops to say for sure. At this point, we're just happy to see that both options deliver over ten hours with their large 2560 x 1600 screens.

Final thoughts

After putting Intel's Core Ultra 9 285H chip and its 140T integrated graphics through our typical laptop tests compared to a similarly equipped MSI Prestige system running AMD's Ryzen AI 9 365 and its 880M graphics, we are left with more or less the same conclusions we had late last year in our much more extensive laptop graphics testing.

After many years of dominance by AMD, Intel's integrated graphics are now the best in terms of raw performance overall. And thanks to its work over the past few years on dedicated cards like the Arc B580

, its driver and software stack have improved greatly. But we'd still give the edge to AMD on the software side, which isn't surprising given its GPU focus since acquiring ATI way back in 2006.

And regardless of how much integrated graphics have improved in the last few years, just because you can play most modern games these days on an iGPU doesn't necessarily mean everyone will want to. As our testing shows, you'll often have to drop below 1080p resolution, even on older games at high settings. And the more demanding games that have come out in the last few years will force you to stick to low settings and 720p to keep things running above even 30 FPS. So unless you're really counting on game developers downgrading the visuals due to rising costs

, you should probably still choose a laptop with dedicated graphics if you want to play the best games of 2025 and beyond.

After a rough start with the Mattel Aquarius as a child, Matt built his first PC in the late 1990s and ventured into mild PC modding in the early 2000s. He’s spent the last 15 years covering emerging technology for Smithsonian, Popular Science, and Consumer Reports, while testing components and PCs for Computer Shopper, PCMag and Digital Trends.

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