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Before Intel Xe graphics cards appeared on the horizon, the GPU market has been dominated by AMD and Intel alone. However, now we know that Intel graphics cards are going to be coming to market soon, to add a third player to the gaming graphics game. And, well, now that graphics cards like the Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Super cost much more than their previous-generation counterparts, we canāt wait for this new competition to enter the scene.
However, we have heard some rumors that Intel graphics cards are going to enter the mainstream market at first, so itās unlikely that weāll see an RTX 2080 Ti competitor right away.
However, because these Intel graphics cards are still a little ways out, and we donāt even know any specifics, thereās a lot of speculation and rumors out there. Luckily we gathered all of this information in one place, so you can get caught up on Intel Xe graphics cards without having to do much digging. So, be sure to keep this page bookmarked, and weāll keep it updated with all the latest news and information.
Cut to the chase
[ul]
[li]What is it? Intelās line of graphics cards[/li][li]When is it out? Sometime in 2020[/li][li]What will it cost? No one knows yet[/li][/ul]
Intel graphics cards release date
Intel graphics cards seem set for release sometime in 2020 and thatās the only thing we can be sure about. The chipmaker itself has stated that itās on track to release graphics cards in 2020 at least twice. Weāre not sure of a much more accurate date beyond that, unfortunately. Weāre hoping itāll come sooner at the start of 2020.
So, at GDC 2019, Intel showed off some renders of its future graphics cards. We still donāt know what kind of technology is going to be behind these cards, but it seems like Intel is on track for that 2020 release date. Coupled with Intelās new graphics tuning software, it seems like Intel is going to slowly release GPU information over the next year. Of course, we could get radio silence until CES 2019, but we donāt think itās going to play out like that.
Either way, we donāt know the exact release date for Intelās graphics card until the company wants us to (or until the release date gets leaked, as is likely to happen).
[IMG alt="9iXgGx699d7WU95CsRkBin" width="690px" height="388px"]https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/9iXgGx699d7WU95CsRkBin.jpg[/IMG]
Intel Xe prototype shroud design
Intel graphics cards price
Intelās pricing for its graphics cards is ultimately going to boil down to what segment of the consumer market it plans to capitalize on it. Weāre sure that there will be professional and datacenter GPUs that cost thousands of dollars, but weāre more interested in consumer or gaming graphics cards.
There are some signs that Intel is going to compete with the likes of AMD. In an interview with Russian YouTube channel Pro Hi-Tech ā thatās been taken down ā Intel senior vice president of architecture said Intel graphics cards would target the mainstream, which starts at $200 (about Ā£165, AU$294). Since then, however, Intel has since come out and clarified that Koduri was talking about the mainstream market starting at that price point and not future Intel graphics cards starting at that price.
However, it is possible that Intel would target the high-end enthusiast market, too. Weāve heard that Intel Xe graphics cards would feature baked-in support for ray tracing ā something AMD hasnāt caught up with. However, there is a chance that only high-end GPUs targeted at enterprise users would feature this capability.
Obviously, this far out from the actual launch of Intel Xe graphics cards, itās hard to nail down how much weāll have to pay for Team Blueās GPUs. And, because this would be the first generation of Intel graphics cards, we canāt exactly look to the past to try and suss out how much weāll be spending.
At the end of the day, we donāt know what Intel is doing here, but weāre excited nonetheless. Weāll be keeping our ears to the ground on this one, waiting until more information starts surfacing ā so stay tuned.
[IMG alt=āIntel Xe graphics cardsā]http://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/cqH...yKQgRr8wdn.jpg
What can Intel Xe graphics cards do?
Intel graphics cards specs
Usually, this is the part of the story where we dive into past releases and try to guess what the future products are going to look like. But, we canāt really do that this time around ā itās been almost two decades since Intel has released a discrete GPU, and that didnāt end so well for team blue.
That doesnāt mean that there isnāt anything out there that we can take a look at. We have seen a leaked graphics driver show up on the Anandtech forums, possibly referencing several discrete graphics cards ā and a rough idea on their specs. For instance, we saw a iDG2HP512, which looks like a bunch of random numbers and letters at first glance. However, if you take DG to mean ādiscrete graphicsā and the 512 to signify the number of EUs (execution units), we can get a rough idea of what it can do.
These execution cores are essentially Intelās equivalent to Nvidiaās CUDA cores, where the more you have, the faster the GPU is. For comparisonās sake, in Intelās latest Ice Lake processors that sport Gen11 integrated graphics, the beefiest GPU only has 64 EUs. These discrete Intel graphics cards, if these leaks are at all reliable, should be an order of magnitude faster than the integrated Gen11 graphics on Ice Lake.
Intel has also announced that its discrete graphics will support hardware-optimized ray tracing ā but itās unclear whether or not this will be an enterprise-level feature. However, now that we know the PS5 and Xbox Project Scarlett will feature ray tracing, Intel may need to include this capabilities in its graphics cards, especially if they release alongside AMDās rumored Navi 23 graphics.
Intel is taking some notes from its competition, when it comes to software, too. At GDC 2019, Intel launched the new Intel Graphics Command Center, which is the Blue Teamās equivalent to something like Nvidiaās GeForce Experience. This isnāt especially helpful right now, as integrated graphics arenāt the best for playing games, but it does mean that once Intel graphics cards do release, theyāll feature one-click game optimization.
At the end of the day, there are only a couple things we need to see in these new GPUs, they need to be capable of 4K gaming, and they need to be priced competitively. If Intel is able to hit these two marks, we could see Intel competing in the bloodthirsty GPU marketplace. But, we wonāt know until Intel is ready to share.
Continue readingā¦
However, we have heard some rumors that Intel graphics cards are going to enter the mainstream market at first, so itās unlikely that weāll see an RTX 2080 Ti competitor right away.
However, because these Intel graphics cards are still a little ways out, and we donāt even know any specifics, thereās a lot of speculation and rumors out there. Luckily we gathered all of this information in one place, so you can get caught up on Intel Xe graphics cards without having to do much digging. So, be sure to keep this page bookmarked, and weāll keep it updated with all the latest news and information.
Cut to the chase
[ul]
[li]What is it? Intelās line of graphics cards[/li][li]When is it out? Sometime in 2020[/li][li]What will it cost? No one knows yet[/li][/ul]
Intel graphics cards release date
Intel graphics cards seem set for release sometime in 2020 and thatās the only thing we can be sure about. The chipmaker itself has stated that itās on track to release graphics cards in 2020 at least twice. Weāre not sure of a much more accurate date beyond that, unfortunately. Weāre hoping itāll come sooner at the start of 2020.
So, at GDC 2019, Intel showed off some renders of its future graphics cards. We still donāt know what kind of technology is going to be behind these cards, but it seems like Intel is on track for that 2020 release date. Coupled with Intelās new graphics tuning software, it seems like Intel is going to slowly release GPU information over the next year. Of course, we could get radio silence until CES 2019, but we donāt think itās going to play out like that.
Either way, we donāt know the exact release date for Intelās graphics card until the company wants us to (or until the release date gets leaked, as is likely to happen).
[IMG alt="9iXgGx699d7WU95CsRkBin" width="690px" height="388px"]https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/9iXgGx699d7WU95CsRkBin.jpg[/IMG]
Intel Xe prototype shroud design
Intel graphics cards price
Intelās pricing for its graphics cards is ultimately going to boil down to what segment of the consumer market it plans to capitalize on it. Weāre sure that there will be professional and datacenter GPUs that cost thousands of dollars, but weāre more interested in consumer or gaming graphics cards.
There are some signs that Intel is going to compete with the likes of AMD. In an interview with Russian YouTube channel Pro Hi-Tech ā thatās been taken down ā Intel senior vice president of architecture said Intel graphics cards would target the mainstream, which starts at $200 (about Ā£165, AU$294). Since then, however, Intel has since come out and clarified that Koduri was talking about the mainstream market starting at that price point and not future Intel graphics cards starting at that price.
However, it is possible that Intel would target the high-end enthusiast market, too. Weāve heard that Intel Xe graphics cards would feature baked-in support for ray tracing ā something AMD hasnāt caught up with. However, there is a chance that only high-end GPUs targeted at enterprise users would feature this capability.
Obviously, this far out from the actual launch of Intel Xe graphics cards, itās hard to nail down how much weāll have to pay for Team Blueās GPUs. And, because this would be the first generation of Intel graphics cards, we canāt exactly look to the past to try and suss out how much weāll be spending.
At the end of the day, we donāt know what Intel is doing here, but weāre excited nonetheless. Weāll be keeping our ears to the ground on this one, waiting until more information starts surfacing ā so stay tuned.
[IMG alt=āIntel Xe graphics cardsā]http://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/cqH...yKQgRr8wdn.jpg
What can Intel Xe graphics cards do?
Intel graphics cards specs
Usually, this is the part of the story where we dive into past releases and try to guess what the future products are going to look like. But, we canāt really do that this time around ā itās been almost two decades since Intel has released a discrete GPU, and that didnāt end so well for team blue.
That doesnāt mean that there isnāt anything out there that we can take a look at. We have seen a leaked graphics driver show up on the Anandtech forums, possibly referencing several discrete graphics cards ā and a rough idea on their specs. For instance, we saw a iDG2HP512, which looks like a bunch of random numbers and letters at first glance. However, if you take DG to mean ādiscrete graphicsā and the 512 to signify the number of EUs (execution units), we can get a rough idea of what it can do.
These execution cores are essentially Intelās equivalent to Nvidiaās CUDA cores, where the more you have, the faster the GPU is. For comparisonās sake, in Intelās latest Ice Lake processors that sport Gen11 integrated graphics, the beefiest GPU only has 64 EUs. These discrete Intel graphics cards, if these leaks are at all reliable, should be an order of magnitude faster than the integrated Gen11 graphics on Ice Lake.
Intel has also announced that its discrete graphics will support hardware-optimized ray tracing ā but itās unclear whether or not this will be an enterprise-level feature. However, now that we know the PS5 and Xbox Project Scarlett will feature ray tracing, Intel may need to include this capabilities in its graphics cards, especially if they release alongside AMDās rumored Navi 23 graphics.
Intel is taking some notes from its competition, when it comes to software, too. At GDC 2019, Intel launched the new Intel Graphics Command Center, which is the Blue Teamās equivalent to something like Nvidiaās GeForce Experience. This isnāt especially helpful right now, as integrated graphics arenāt the best for playing games, but it does mean that once Intel graphics cards do release, theyāll feature one-click game optimization.
At the end of the day, there are only a couple things we need to see in these new GPUs, they need to be capable of 4K gaming, and they need to be priced competitively. If Intel is able to hit these two marks, we could see Intel competing in the bloodthirsty GPU marketplace. But, we wonāt know until Intel is ready to share.
Continue readingā¦