Latest Intel driver makes reference to DG2 GPUs

Perhaps it is time for those who have not tied their GPU preferences to a particular flagpole to start looking forward to Intel's first gamer / enthusiast targeted discrete GPUs. VideoCardz has spotted that Intel has just released a new graphics driver and it makes specific reference to two DG2 GPUs; one with 128 Execution Units (EUs) and another packing in 512 EUs. For reference DG1 sports a maximum of 96 EUs.

In case you need a refresher, DG2 fills the sizable gap between Integrated/entry level graphics and data centre/AI level GPUs with a GPU that has been optimised for PC enthusiasts and gamers. There is a nod to the gamer segment in the naming of this new tweener GPU – Xe HPG. It has dedicated raytracing hardware too.

Below you can see a snippet from the latest 100.9126 GPU driver code, with commented lines referring to two DG2 variants. You can see one looks to have 128 EUs (1,024 shaders) and another 512 EUs (4,096 shaders) - that in itself presents quite a gap but there have been previous leaks of a 384 EU part – but perhaps that will come a little later than the cheapest and top models.

Last October Intel told investors that it had successfully powered on DG2 silicon for the first time. A few weeks earlier it outlined its architectural strategy with Xe HPG for the first time, and said that DG2 would be manufactured by a third party. Most sources reckon these GPUs will be made by TSMC on its N6 process.

The first we see of DG2 might not be in discrete graphics cards for desktop PC gamers but in gaming laptops with Tiger Lake-H processors. VideoCardz tips this mobile introduction to take place in Q2 this year, which isn't so far off.

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With Tiger Lake at 96EUs, it gets a 3D Mark 11 score of 6710 and Fire Strike of 4820 whereas (being nice) compared to a 6800XT it gets 52046 and 49735 respectively which is and 675% and 931% difference in performance.

Now, obviously, we have to account for the fact that the 96EU tiger lake is 400-1350mhz in a mobile low power configuration and is their version 1.5 of their DG1 system. So if DG2 is perfect scaling with no improvement (so they focused on upscaling first) that would be a 530% increase in performance putting it substantially behind a 6800XT. So the DG2 generation performance increase on IPC and frequency will have to pull out all the stops to beat that deficit.

What also has to be remember is increase of cores traditionally does not provide a perfect scaling of performance, Intel may be different with the DG2, maybe it does but it's unlikely.
I don't think DG2 will compete on the high end, I think they'll play in the volume market first like AMD did for all those years trying to catch OEM wins etc. They will catch wins and the DG2 will saturate the market because Intel will use it's financial horsepower to make it so.

Frankly, it looks like they're targeting the volume, mid-market initially because it looks like it'll barely be scraping an RX580 level performance which altogether isn't bad. A second frankly, I bet Intel will push themselves heavily into the OEM space and do the dirty like before just so their GPUs can get mindshare because not many will want a mid-range, first generation (DG1 can barely be called “first”) untested GPU in their system for gaming.

These cards seem to have been in development for a seriously long time… it'll be interesting to see whether they offer Nvidia and AMD any serious competition and whether a third player in the gaming GPU space helps drive better price/performance for consumers.

Tabbykatze
Now, obviously, we have to account for the fact that the 96EU tiger lake is 400-1350mhz in a mobile low power configuration and is their version 1.5 of their DG1 system.

The discrete DG1 with dedicated GDDR6 and presumably a less restricted TDP hit 5528 in Fire Strike, although there's the chance newer drivers have made further gains…?

If this is the ‘enthusiast’ card it's a little underwhelming.

KultiVator
These cards seem to have been in development for a seriously long time… it'll be interesting to see whether they offer Nvidia and AMD any serious competition and whether a third player in the gaming GPU space helps drive better price/performance for consumers.

As long as GPUs are all competing for the same limited TSMC & Samsung silicon wafers, I don't see it helping.

edmundhonda
The discrete DG1 with dedicated GDDR6 and presumably a less restricted TDP hit 5528 in Fire Strike, although there's the chance newer drivers have made further gains…?

If this is the ‘enthusiast’ card it's a little underwhelming.

That's a whole 14% faster with the memory focused RAM that puts the 6800XT at 899% faster than the DG1, so my scale up figures aren't changed by much.

As I alluded, the DG1 was just hot garbage but it was simply because it was a first generation alpha product that really shouldn't have seen the light of day as a “GPU” but more of a test bed for development which really is what it became. But that was during the same that Raja was doing his whole overmarketing shtick before he got his choke chain pulled so that's why it was made out to be far more than it actually was.

Latest Intel driver makes reference to DG2 GPUs

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