Intel Alder Lake Gen12 GPU: GT0.5 and GT1
We received a tip about a commit to Intel’s open-source Media Driver that took place back in December. It appears that Intel has already listed Alder Lake-S integrated GPUs in the Media Driver.
As we have mentioned before, Intel Alder Lake is a hybrid architecture that will feature Gracemont and Golden Cove core designs on a single package. The series will be divided into three sub-series: the M-Series, the P-Series, and the S-Series. The first two are mobile series that we covered recently in this article. The S-Series are the next-gen desktop CPUs that will replace 11th Gen Rocket Lake-S, which is now scheduled to launch in March. Interestingly according to recent rumors Alder Lake series might be announced just six months later.
The Media Driver commit revealed that Intel Alder Lake-S will sport either GT0.5 or GT1 integrated graphics, which will be based on the same Gen12 architecture, known as Xe-LP. The Tiger Lake, Rocket Lake, and Alder Lake are all listed in a single column, indicating that there is little to no difference between those graphics architectures. There have been rumors that Alder Lake might be Gen12.2, while TGL and RKL are Gen12.1, however, it is currently unknown if there are any changes to these subarchitectures.
The GT0.5 and GT1 codenames define the number of cores each CPU might have. Intel usually splits iGPus into GT1 or GT2, the latter being the full-fat iGPU. In this case, the GT2 might be used by Alder Lake-M or P series, while desktop ADP-S series do not need such a powerful iGPU, as they will be paired with discrete GPUs such as GeForce RTX, Radeon RX or, in Intel’s case, maybe even the upcoming Xe-HPG series.
Intel Alder Lake Gen12 integrated GPU, Source: Intel
The first leak that listed GT1 for the S-Series is dated back to March 2020:
Intel Alder Lake Configurations, Source: PTTShopping
The configurations of Alder Lake iGPU have already leaked back in August, thanks to Coreboot listings. The list did not feature GT0.5 graphics though.
| Intel Alder Lake Configurations | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| VideoCardz.com | BIG cores | SMALL cores | GPU | Alder Lake S | Alder Lake P |
| 8 Big Cores | |||||
| 8+8+1 | GT1 | YES | NO | ||
| 8+6+1 | GT1 | YES | NO | ||
| 8+4+1 | GT1 | YES | NO | ||
| 8+2+1 | GT1 | YES | NO | ||
| 8+0+1 | GT1 | YES | NO | ||
| 6 Big Cores | |||||
| 6+8+2 | GT2 | NO | YES | ||
| 6+8+1 | GT1 | YES | NO | ||
| 6+6+1 | GT1 | YES | NO | ||
| 6+4+2 | GT2 | NO | YES | ||
| 6+4+1 | GT1 | YES | NO | ||
| 6+2+1 | GT1 | YES | NO | ||
| 6+0+1 | GT1 | YES | NO | ||
| 4 Big Cores | |||||
| 4+8+2 | GT2 | NO | YES | ||
| 4+0+1 | GT1 | YES | NO | ||
| 2 Big Cores | |||||
| 2+8+2 | GT2 | NO | YES | ||
| 2+4+2 | GT2 | NO | YES | ||
| 2+0+2 | GT2 | NO | YES | ||
| 2+0+1 | GT1 | YES | NO | ||
Intel Media Driver already lists official Alder Lake-S video encoding and decoding capabilities. The company does not differentiate between Tiger Lake (TGL), Rocket Lake (RKL) and Alder Lake-S (ADL-S), they are all listed as a single family of products. As noted by Intel, only Tiger Lake supports VP8 decoding though.
| Intel iGPU Decoding/Encoding Features | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CODEC | Build Types | BDW | SKL | BXT/APL | KBLx | ICL | EHL/JSL | TGL/RKL/ADL-S | DG1/SG1 |
| AVC | Full-Feature Free-Kernel | D/Es D | D/E/Es D/E | D/E/Es D/E | D/E/Es D/E | D/E/Es D/E | D/E D/E | D/E/Es D/E | D/E/Es D/E |
| MPEG-2 | Full-Feature Free-Kernel | D/Es D | D/Es D | D D | D/Es D | D/Es D | D D | D/Es D | D/Es D |
| VC-1 | Full-Feature Free-Kernel | D | D | D | D | D | D | D | D |
| JPEG | Full-Feature Free-Kernel | D D | D/E D/E | D/E D/E | D/E D/E | D/E D/E | D/E D/E | D/E D/E | D/E D/E |
| VP8 | Full-Feature Free-Kernel | D D | D D | D D | D/Es D | D/Es D | D D | D* D* | |
| HEVC 8bit | Full-Feature Free-Kernel | D/Es D | D/Es D | D/Es D | D/E/Es D/E | D/E D/E | D/E/Es D/E | D/E/Es D/E | |
| HEVC 8bit 422 | Full-Feature Free-Kernel | D/Es D | D D | D/Es D | D/Es D | ||||
| HEVC 8bit 444 | Full-Feature Free-Kernel | D/E D/E | D/E D/E | D/E D/E | D/E D/E | ||||
| HEVC 10bit | Full-Feature Free-Kernel | D D | D/Es D | D/E/Es D/E | D/E D/E | D/E/Es D/E | D/E/Es D/E | ||
| HEVC 10bit 422 | Full-Feature Free-Kernel | D/Es D | D D | D/Es D | D/Es D | ||||
| HEVC 10bit 444 | Full-Feature Free-Kernel | D/E D/E | D/E D/E | D/E D/E | D/E D/E | ||||
| HEVC 12bit | Full-Feature Free-Kernel | D/Es D | D/Es D | ||||||
| HEVC 12bit 422 | Full-Feature Free-Kernel | D D | D D | ||||||
| HEVC 12bit 444 | Full-Feature Free-Kernel | D D | D D | ||||||
| VP9 8bit | Full-Feature Free-Kernel | D D | D D | D/E D/E | D/E D/E | D/E D/E | D/E D/E | ||
| VP9 8bit 444 | Full-Feature Free-Kernel | D/E D/E | D/E D/E | D/E D/E | D/E D/E | ||||
| VP9 10bit | Full-Feature Free-Kernel | D D | D/E D/E | D/E D/E | D/E D/E | D/E D/E | |||
| VP9 10bit 444 | Full-Feature Free-Kernel | D/E D/E | D/E D/E | D/E D/E | D/E D/E | ||||
| VP9 12bit | Full-Feature Free-Kernel | D D | D D | ||||||
| VP9 12bit 444 | Full-Feature Free-Kernel | D D | D D | ||||||
| AV1 8bit | Full-Feature Free-Kernel | D D** | D D** | ||||||
| AV1 10bit | Full-Feature Free-Kernel | D D** | D D** | ||||||
- D – Hardware Decoding
- E – Hardware Encoding, Low Power Encoding(VDEnc/Huc)
- Es – Hardware(PAK) + Shader(media kernel+VME) Encoding
- * VP8 decoding is only supported on TGL platform
- ** AV1 film grain kernel is not open so far
Source: Intel Media Driver (Github)
