With the Swift 3X and its 11th-gen Core i7, that means that more than 28 watts of power and thermal performance can be delivered to the CPU on demand, which theoretically should speed up CPU-intensive tasks. This feature allows the system to “turn off” the GPU and give all the system’s power to the CPU. Not all of them are enabled yet or supported by today’s software, and so we’ll focus on just one: Deep Link Dynamic Power Share. One term you’ll want to keep in mind, though, is Deep Link, which is Intel’s term for technology that intricately connects the CPU and GPU (both Iris Xe and Iris Xe Max) to enable some sophisticated capabilities. If you want to dig into the details about the new GPU, then check out our guide to Intel’s discrete GPUs and our deep dive into the Iris Xe Max itself. Reading Intel’s description of the GPU exposes you to a host of buzzwords and technical jargon, but we’ll skip most of it here.

That’s the make-or-break test for the Acer Swift 3X. Either the Iris Xe Max makes a difference in real-world tasks, or it doesn’t. We’ll start with performance because it’s where the rubber meets the road in this review. You can spend $899 and get a version with just Iris Xe graphics inside, a Core i5-1135G7, 8GB of RAM, and a 512GB SSD.ĭo the Iris Xe Max graphics make this a must-buy midrange laptop? Performance It comes in at $1,240 at Amazon with a Core i7-1165G7, 16GB of LPDDR4X RAM, 1TB of PCIe solid-state drive (SSD) storage, and a 14-inch Full HD (1920 x 1080) IPS display in the increasingly old-school 16:9 aspect ratio. The Acer Swift 3X isn’t a cheap laptop in its Iris Xe Max configuration - at least not for a typical Swift laptop.

So far, the Iris Xe Max is in three laptops, and we received one of them - the midrange clamshell Acer Swift 3X - for review.

Iris xe max