Intel has officially confirmed it is now shipping its first discrete GPU in 20 years – the DG1.
Intel DG1 shipping, DG2 taped out
In a presentation covering Intel’s third-quarter results, Intel has announced it is now shipping its DG1 GPU and that DG2 has powered-on, meaning it is already in the labs.
The DG1 is Intel’s highly anticipated discrete graphics for mobile devices. The graphics that are commercially known as Iris Xe Max were touted as a companion to 11th Gen Core Tiger Lake processors, also featuring the integrated Xe Graphics. Only this month first notebook makers have officially confirmed they have been working on laptops featuring Iris Xe Max, and just 2 days ago Intel confirmed it has been shipping the GPU to OEMs:
Both Tiger Lake iGPU and discrete Iris Xe Max graphics feature 96 Execution Units based on Xe-LP Gen12 architecture. The manufacturer has not yet confirmed if and how the integrated and discrete graphics cooperate with each other. The integrated version features a maximum boost clock of 1.35 GHz and is paired with 3GB of VRAM. The discrete version is expected to be clocked higher, at 1.5 GHz with memory capacities going up to 6GB.
The chipmaker has also confirmed that the DG2 has been powered-on. The first alpha silicon is currently in the evaluation phase at Intel labs. The company has not confirmed when the DG2 will be available to consumers, but we can conclude it will be available later than Arctic Sound GPU (Xe-HP), which has been taped out (1,2 and 4-tile variants) months ago, as confirmed by Raja Koduri.
Intel CEO, Bob Swan, revealed in its Q3 2020 earnings remarks that DG2 is not a successor to DG1. What it means is that it does not use Xe-LP architecture, but a gaming oriented Xe-HPG instead. The Xe-HPG products were also already confirmed by Intel to be manufacturer by an external foundry, which is rumored to be TSMC 6nm. We are yet to hear from Intel whether DG2 GPU will offer a competitive high-end gaming experience, or it focuses on the mid-range market where volume production and brand establishment has higher priority than simply shipping the best GPU to the market.
Our first discrete GPU, ‘DG1,’ is shipping now and will be in systems from multiple OEMs later in Q4. We also powered-on our next-generation GPU for Client, ‘DG2.’ Based on our Xe high-performance gaming architecture, this product will take our discrete graphics capability up the stack into the enthusiast segment.
— Intel CEO, Bob Swan
Previous leaks have suggested that we should expect 384 Execution Units, and up to 8GB of GDDR6 memory. While DG1 is a companion to Tiger Lake-U, the DG2 might be a companion to Tiger Lake-H or Intel Alder Lake-P, the next-generation high-end mobile gaming processor architectures.
Intel DG1 GPU and DG1 Software Develoepment Vehicle
| Intel Xe Graphics Products | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Xe-LP | Xe-HPG | Xe-HP | Xe-HPC |
| Multimedia | Gaming | Datacenter / AI | HPC Exascale |
Source: Intel (PDF), Anandtech
