a rasterizer to generate a fragment of pixel data including a plurality of blocks of pixel data, each block including multiple pixels;

a depth pipeline to receive the fragment, the depth pipeline including at least first depth test hardware and second depth test hardware, the first depth test hardware to perform a first depth test including determining a minimum depth and a maximum depth for each block and the second depth hardware to perform a second depth test including per pixel interpolation; and

a depth buffer to store depth data;

wherein the processor is to:

determine whether the fragment meets requirements that the fragment fully covers a tile of pixel data and passes the first depth test performed by the first depth test hardware, and that each of the minimum and maximum depths of the fragment has a same sign and exponent,

upon determining that the fragment meets the requirements, generate a compressed depth plane utilizing data from the first depth test, and update the depth buffer with the compressed depth plane, and

upon determining that the fragment does not meet the requirements, provide the fragment to the second depth test hardware for per pixel interpolation to generate per pixel values, and transfer the generated per pixel values to the depth buffer.