There was once a time when intel stepped into the world of Gaming GPUs but was ruthlessly massacred by the likes of Nvidia and AMD. However, since it existed almost a decade ago, the company is finally stepping into the GPU market with a vengeance. Owing to the current demand for high-performing hardware, Intel is gearing strongly towards the launch of its upcoming Xe HPG platform.
Originally announced at ISC 2021, the Xe HPG platform is gearing up to be a huge milestone. It’s been announced that till now, intel has not only finalized the design and prototyping, but the company is also getting ready for the final leg of the journey, and that is the sampling and production of the graphics card.
This information means that the first Intel discrete graphics card in 6 months is most likely at CES 2022. In addition, it was last week that Intel restructured the company to put graphics front and centre and created a new business unit called the Accelerated Computer Systems and Graphics (ACSG) Group. The Group is even lead by the Intel GPU Chief Raja Koduri.
Intel’s new hyped graphics card will offer up to 512 execution units with 8 ALUs each, and the total will be 4096 ALUs (or cores). Let’s not forget that this will be Intel’s absolute first attempt at discrete GPUs. So most of us are expecting that Intel could perform at least decent as a commercial mid-end GPU. However, Intel’s Raja is already planning to take the Xe HPG to new heights because the GPU matches the NVIDIA RTX 3070 at the 448 EU level and should beat it at the 512 EU level.
RX 6700 XT 100%
— APISAK (@TUM_APISAK) June 18, 2021
RTX 3070 97%
448EU @ 1.8 GHz 92%⬅️
———————————-
128EU @ 1.9 GHz 100%⬅️
GTX 1650 88% pic.twitter.com/giPGE8JtBJ
Its also being more and more clear that Intel will be first launching the laptop variant of its graphics card and will be keeping the desktop variant for another date.
Intel Xe-HPG DG2 GPU Expected Specs
| GPU Variant | GPU SKU | Execution Units | Shading Units (Cores) | Memory Capacity | Memory Bus | TGP |
| Xe-HPG 512EU | DG2-512EU | 512 EUs | 4096 | 16/8 GB GDDR6 | 256-bit | TBC |
| Xe-HPG 384EU | DG2-384EU | 384 EUs | 3072 | 12/6 GB GDDR6 | 192-bit | TBC |
| Xe-HPG 256EU | DG2-384EU | 256 EUs | 2048 | 8/4 GB GDDR6 | 128-bit | TBC |
| Xe-HPG 192EU | DG2-384EU | 192 EUs | 1536 | 4 GB GDDR6 | 128-bit | TBC |
| Xe-HPG 128EU | DG2-128EU | 128 EUs | 1024 | 4 GB GDDR6 | 64-bit | TBC |
| Xe-HPG 96EU | DG2-128EU | 86 EUs | 768 | 4 GB GDDR6 | 64-bit | ~120W |
Intel is expecting to keep the cards’ performance high along with making them a power-efficient graphic card. The level of performance offered by the Xe HPG will be more than enough for the vast majority of gamers who are not planning to exceed the 4K 60 standard. Furthermore, since the new GPU also comes with hardware support for raytracing, it’s ahead of the race compared to most of the Navi GPUs in existence.
Let’s wait and see for the next year, CES event and welcome Intel’s first discrete graphics card with a bang.
