Everything we know about Intel’s return to the GPU scene.
A new challenger is set to enter the cutthroat world of discrete graphics cards in 2020. Announced at the end of 2018, the Intel Xe GPU is coming later this year. That’s pronounced X-E, for reference, not Zee and in an ideal world Intel will give PC gamers another viable option on the gaming GPU front, but it looks like we’re only going to get discrete mobile Xe graphics silicon this year. Mix that in with the upcoming Nvidia Ampere cards, AMD’s Big Navi / RDNA 2 GPUs, and even potentially Huawei’s rumored entry into the GPU market, and we’re still in for an exciting end to this year.
Intel’s current line of integrated GPUs doesn’t even rank on our GPU hierarchy so it’ll be interesting to see how its future discrete cards stack up against Nvidia and AMD’s offerings. If current numbers ring true… not great. But the first generation is always tough, and we’re not expecting Intel to dramatically change the game with its first Xe GPUs. The Intel Xe is set to be positioned as a direct competitor with AMD and Nvidia on all fronts, by making GPUs in gaming, pro-grade, and enterprise markets. And if Intel sticks the landing this will effectively give consumers a competitive third choice in GPUs, which could be huge.
But the last time the CPU titan attempted to dive into the discrete graphics pond was with the ill-fated Larrabee, later Xeon Phi, way back in 2009. It went away, licked its wounds, and started recruiting industry veterans, such as Raja Koduri from AMD, to lead the charge its future graphics architecture late in 2017.
While not much official information is available, aside from a limited CES hands-on session with the not-for-public-consumption Intel DG1 discrete graphics card, internet sleuths have pulled out some potentially exciting details from several rumors and leaks. And this is what we know right now. At a glance…
Intel Xe release rateIntel’s 2020 release of its new discrete Xe graphics cards still seems to be happening, but likely only in mobile form. An early fall release appearing to be a realistic timetable, likely alongside Tiger Lake laptops with discrete mobile GPUs sitting next to integrated Xe graphics silicon. Intel Xe graphics probably won’t be coming to desktops this year.
Intel Xe specsWhile there’s no official release of GPU specs, a certain amount has leaked out. We know the DG1 card comes with 96EUs (roughly analogous to a GPU core-count), and the highest-spec Tiger Lake CPU will match that. We also know that there will be at least three brands of Xe graphics cards (Xe-LP, Xe-HP, and Xe-HPC) covering entry-level, enthusiast, and high-end computing.
Intel Xe performanceThe Tiger Lake and DG1 performance figures that have appeared online, whether on Geekbench or 3DMark, detail a first-gen GPU that’s ahead of AMD’s own integrated graphics, but behind the entry-level discrete cards of either it or Nvidia. That’s the low-end Xe-LP, however, Xe-HP is supposedly a potential gaming GPU, with Xe-HPC a server-side offering.
Intel Xe priceIf Intel is planning on making graphics cards to compete with what’s already on the market, it’ll probably be safe to assume that pricing is also going to be competitive.
