INTEL XE: THE GPUS THAT WILL CHALLENGE NVIDIA AND AMD IN THE VIDEO CARD MARKET
Announced in August 2019 with a synthetic teaser that read " set our graphics free ", the Intel Xe GPU line is preparing to challenge the consumer market. Between rumors and after appearing on some benchmarks, the first "discrete" graphics card was shown to the public for the first time during the last CES 2020 . Analysts and industry experts predict the arrival of the Xe line of graphics accelerators by next summer and are confident that manufacturers and developers already have working models.
The goal of the colossus of Santa Clara seems to attack the
mid-range of the market,(which in the meantime will not stand by and watch),
with high-performance and low-cost hardware. By analyzing hypotheses and
certainties we will try to take stock of the situation, trying to outline the
characteristics of this new project.
Intel Xe: Architecture and Specifications
Intel has announced three distinct microarchitectures for
the Xe GPU family that will allow, thanks to a particular propensity for
scalability, to occupy different market segments. The graphics chips, called
Xe-LP , Xe-HP and Xe-HPC , will in fact cover the entry-level, enthusiast and
High-Performance Computing (server) segments, respectively. The first GPU to
hit the headlines , codenamed DG1 , belongs to the Xe-LP series and should
represent integrated and low-end solutions, with a design presumably built on
the same blocks as the Ice Lake Gen11 architecture .: Gregory Bryant of Intel
has in fact previously confirmed that the first discrete cards would be born on
the existing IP model.
The ECC registers then offer an overview of the
specifications of the DG1 chip, defining with good probability the presence of
96 EU (execution units), with a construction model that, according to the
analysis of the blocks, recalls the arrangement of the famous AMD RDNA. After
all, the development of Intel video cards is led by Raja Koduri , formerly head
of the Radeon Technology Group.
As for the medium and high range, the category should
instead be represented by the DG2 GPUs of the Xe-HP and Xe-HPC family: in this
case the information is really sparse but from the analysis of an internal
driver that emerged on the net a few months ago. , it would seem that Intel is
aiming at the production of three different graphics cards respectively with
128 EU , 256 EU and finally 512 EU , also with an architecture that could be
similar to what was seen on RDNA.
A straight leg entry?
In terms of performance, the material on Intel Xe GPUs is
reduced to a minimum. However, a benchmark unearthed by user _rogame for the
entry level Xe DG1 GPU showed performance superior to that of a Ryzen 7 4800U
(with integrated graphics). Considering that the new AMD Mobile CPU can count
on 512 stream processors and 8 computing units, in addition to the 7-nanometer
production process, the data bodes well, especially for solutions with
mid-range and high-end dedicated graphics. Analyzing the data that emerged over
the last few months, we can hazard a few hypotheses on the medium-high-end DG2
chips: the Intel Xe card with 128 Eu could be able to rival an NVIDIA GTX 1650
, leaving Intel Xe 256 Eu to compete between theRTX 2060 and the RTX 2060 Super
, finally with the Intel Xe 512 Eu engaged on the front of the RTX 2080
(according to some calculations with a clock frequency of 1.7 GHz the
performance of the latter could even touch the peaks of an RTX 2080 Ti ...).
Obviously a lot will depend on the clock frequencies of the various solutions
proposed by Intel, as well as on the TDP and the related heat management.
From the point of view of the characteristics we know
something more: the Intel Xe GPUs will natively support Adaptive Sync ,
guaranteeing greater fluidity to compatible monitors.
The latest internal drivers unearthed by the network have
also highlighted the possible support for Ray Tracing , next-gen feature par
excellence, even if at the moment it is not possible to establish in which
models it will be enabled and above all if it will be managed via software or
through dedicated cores. Finally, Intel is also working on multi-GPU support ,
a feature that could guarantee a huge advantage in terms of power thanks to the
shared management of the workload between CPU and GPU, maximizing the
performance of integrated and low-end solutions.
A date and a price
The launch date of the first series of Intel Xe graphics
cards still remains a mystery. According to analysts and data from the clues
published over time by Raja Koduri, the GPUs of the Santa Clara company could
arrive by the first half of 2020 and more precisely in June of this year. Bob
Swan, CEO of Intel, has indeed confirmed that the X and DG1 GPUs have completed
the test phase and have been registered on the EEC database. Cards destined for
high-end and servers should instead follow in the course of 2021.
As for prices, it is expected that Intel's proposal can
leverage a noteworthy quality / price ratio: the less performing models should
start around $ 200 while the gaming and enthusiast proposals could be between
400 and 1000. dollars.
Intel's entry into the world of video cards marks a crucial
moment for the future of the hardware market and for the development of
gaming-related technologies. If the Californian giant's proposal were to find
fertile ground, AMD and NVIDIA would be forced to respond not only in terms of
performance but also in terms of prices.
Obviously it is still too early to outline a possible
scenario but dreaming like in the days when 3DFX, Matrox, ATI and the nascent
NVIDIA challenged each other with silicon shots does not cost anything.
