Intel Xe GPU Speculation

[SheepBeast]

Am I missing something with all this talk about drivers? Haven't Intel been making iGPUs for many years? AFAIK these new dedicated cards are based architecturally on their iGPUs so shouldn't a lot of the driver code also be shared?

Point is they aren't starting from scratch. They're actually the largest maker of GPUs on the planet and have been for years.

 

[Troezar]

Am I missing something with all this talk about drivers? Haven't Intel been making iGPUs for many years? AFAIK these new dedicated cards are based architecturally on their iGPUs so shouldn't a lot of the driver code also be shared?

Point is they aren't starting from scratch. They're actually the largest maker of GPUs on the planet and have been for years.

That's a good point. I think they're recent issues with CPUs have lead many to underestimate them. I'm expecting a strong bounce back from them in the next few years.

 

[Donnie Fisher]

Yes there have been making igpu for a long time, but the drivers are what take the system requests and divide up the work across the gpu architecture.

the much larger number of cores may make for notable drivers differences needed than a simple tweak of existing.

 

[KompuKare]

As mentioned earlier, Intel bringing their own fab capacity into the fray can potentially change the game massively.

Except that - at least initially - aren't all their - Xe descrete GPUs going to made at TSMC potentiality eating into AMD's and Nvidia's supplies?

There even talk of Intel deliberately buying up TSMC capacity to deny it to their rivals although TSMC are probably aware of that and hopefully see Intel as a short-term costumer and will treat their queue position accordingly (unless some American protectionism comes into play and TSMC is forced to prioritize Intel).

As for drivers... Well it is true that Intel have been making iGPUs for ages, but their driver reputation there is pretty bad. Stable drivers at running Windows, with very little game optimisations.
People perhaps underestimate the work required for gaming drivers. Often the driver team has to rewrite the whole shaders for a game (possible a bigger problem for AMD when Gamework titles comes out possible deliberately written to perform poorly on Radeon and they have to rewrite whatever they can without access to the source, but I'm sure occasionally Nvidia are also challenged with an AMD sponsored game).

Unless Intel are willing and able to throw vast resources at drivers, they will lag behind sometimes massively so. And if Nvidia perceives then as a big thread, I'm sure they'll play nasty. AMD possibly too although rather than sponsorship they seem to rely mostly on riding of the back of console optimisations.

 

[HangTime]

Am I missing something with all this talk about drivers? Haven't Intel been making iGPUs for many years? AFAIK these new dedicated cards are based architecturally on their iGPUs so shouldn't a lot of the driver code also be shared?

Point is they aren't starting from scratch. They're actually the largest maker of GPUs on the planet and have been for years.

I thought about this as well, which is why I specifically cited "high end gaming parts". I'm sure any company the size of Intel is capable of writing functional graphics drivers, but whether they can write cutting edge super-optimised drivers is another matter. Nobody really cares how an iGPU performs in AAA games, they expect to to be rubbish so there is little incentive from excessive optimisation and conversely nobody is going to call them out for lacklustre performance. So they will have invested very little on that side of things in relative terms compared to what is needed to compete in the lions den of hardcore gaming cards.

 

[Rroff]

I thought about this as well, which is why I specifically cited "high end gaming parts". I'm sure any company the size of Intel is capable of writing functional graphics drivers, but whether they can write cutting edge super-optimised drivers is another matter. Nobody really cares how an iGPU performs in AAA games, they expect to to be rubbish so there is little incentive from excessive optimisation and conversely nobody is going to call them out for lacklustre performance. So they will have invested very little on that side of things in relative terms compared to what is needed to compete in the lions den of hardcore gaming cards.

I'm not quite sure how to describe it but the problem is Intel has a kind of fire and forget kind of software development mentality - work on drivers is more of a series of discrete efforts - gather a team, set goals, thrash it out, move on while for gaming drivers you really need a sustained, evolving effort over time with continuity.

Yes there have been making igpu for a long time, but the drivers are what take the system requests and divide up the work across the gpu architecture.

the much larger number of cores may make for notable drivers differences needed than a simple tweak of existing.

Yeah - utilising a lot of cores and GPU hardware for features vs a highly serialised pipeline with a limited number of execution units and a lot of software [CPU] assistance can be a huge difference.

 

[ASMB]

For those doubting that they are taking drivers seriously an update from Raja, Raja Koduri teases Xe-HPG discrete DG2 GPU with 512 Execution Units - VideoCardz.com

 

[Tetras]

I used to game on a HD 530 pretty often, so driver support doesn't bother me. What bothers me is being able to buy something reasonable for less than £200, instead of a 1050 ti.

 

[Troezar]

I used to game on a HD 530 pretty often, so driver support doesn't bother me. What bothers me is being able to buy something reasonable for less than £200, instead of a 1050 ti.

I hear rumours that Intel will be particularly pudding the $200 & $300 price points. Makes sense really if their top end will be 3070Ti territory. Most of the sales are below that level and the market is desperately in need of affordable GPUs.

 

[nvidiamd]

Apisak tweeted that the 448 EU version is close to 6700xt/3070 performance. He has good info from the industry, unlike RGT or MLID.
https://twitter.com/TUM_APISAK/status/1405709858402226182

If it is true then we should expect the biggest card to be above 6800/3070TI performance. Which is amazing for Intel and if the price is right, good news for a lot of people. And even if it is expensive, the competition will bring better prices in the future.

 

[Grim5]

Performance

DG2 is just 5% slower than the RTX3070

https://videocardz.com/newz/intel-dg2-set-to-compete-with-nvidia-ga104-and-amd-navi22-gpus

 

[Jan Zajac]

(Posted on wrong thread)

 

[FoxEye]

Any ETA on these?

 

[Troezar]

Apisak tweeted that the 448 EU version is close to 6700xt/3070 performance. He has good info from the industry, unlike RGT or MLID.
https://twitter.com/TUM_APISAK/status/1405709858402226182

If it is true then we should expect the biggest card to be above 6800/3070TI performance. Which is amazing for Intel and if the price is right, good news for a lot of people. And even if it is expensive, the competition will bring better prices in the future.

Bring on the competition! I'm expecting Intel to have a lot of volume too.

 

[HangTime]

Judging by that SKU chart, it looks like SKU #2 may be the sweet spot if pricing is sensible (sub-£300). But 12GB of GDDR6 is probably quite expensive atm.

SKUs 3-5 look too weak with crippled memory bus and far less units.

I suspect DG2-512EU parts will be priced too close to the competition making them more of a gamble - do you want to take a punt on the fact that drivers could mature a lot (Intel's answer to FineWine) seeing them get faster and faster over time, versus the risk of finding random games just don't perform well because developers won't have much exposure to the architecture? That's the sort of punt you might take at £250 but not at £500.

You never know maybe we get blown away and Intel come out with 3060Ti performance, good availability and a price under £350, would be quite a shake up but I still have a lot of doubts.

 

[Troezar]

Judging by that SKU chart, it looks like SKU #2 may be the sweet spot if pricing is sensible (sub-£300). But 12GB of GDDR6 is probably quite expensive atm.

SKUs 3-5 look too weak with crippled memory bus and far less units.

I suspect DG2-512EU parts will be priced too close to the competition making them more of a gamble - do you want to take a punt on the fact that drivers could mature a lot (Intel's answer to FineWine) seeing them get faster and faster over time, versus the risk of finding random games just don't perform well because developers won't have much exposure to the architecture? That's the sort of punt you might take at £250 but not at £500.

You never know maybe we get blown away and Intel come out with 3060Ti performance, good availability and a price under £350, would be quite a shake up but I still have a lot of doubts.

That's a pretty fair assessment. If they can get decent performance for £300-350 that would really change things.

 

[nvidiamd]

Intel being competitive in the videocard market will be probably the best thing that happened since AMD brought Zen, maybe even more important. Just think about how many years AMD used the same crappy Vega cores inside their APU's, just because it had no competition.
And if they manage to have such a leap, from nowhere directly to 6800/3070 TI performance or even more, then the future looks bright for Intel.

 

[FredFlint]

I hope this is a good GPU priced to sell so they can get market share, will be worth getting one just as a protest buy against NVIDIA\AMD insane prices!

 

[ASMB]

Any ETA on these?

Only rumour at this stage. i have heard perhaps lower performance cards first before Xmas, higher performance cards Q1 next year. Lots of work needed on drivers yet

 

[ASMB]

Any ETA on these?

Apparently they have now progressed to sampling, Intel DG2 GPUs based on gaming Xe-HPG architecture are now sampling - VideoCardz.com

However, some now suggest that they will release in laptops first and so no ETA on desktop release