The discrete GPU market has been a duopoly for quite some time, and when Intel announced that the company is rebooting plans for its discrete GPU lineup, another player was about to break that duopoly. Today, that has been changed forever and Intel has officially become the third manufacturer of discrete GPUs, as we can see on the online listing. On BestBuy, CyberPowerPC has listed "Gamer Xtreme Gaming Desktop" powered exclusively by Intel components. When it comes to the CPU choice, Intel's 6C/12T Core i5-11400F CPU model is present without iGPU. Now comes the interesting part. The GPU powering the system is Intel Iris Xe discrete graphics card, which is a DG1 GPU based on Xe-LP SKU.

This model features 80 EUs, resulting in 640 shading units. While this is not any gaming beast, casual 1080p gaming should be just fine on this configuration. The system is listed for 750 US Dollars, and it is sold out, as of the time of writing this. While the performance of this configuration may not be something monumental, it is an important step towards Intel's inclusion in the discrete GPU market. By using OEMs, the GPU will reach a very large market without any major problems. We are waiting to see the first reviews of the system, which will surely take a good look at the card and examine its performance.

Yesterday, we got information that Intel's upcoming DG2 discrete graphics card is "right around the corner". That means that we are inching closer to the launch of Intel's discrete GPU offerings, and we are going to get another major player in the current GPU market duopoly. Today, however, we are in luck because Igor from Igor's LAB has managed to get ahold of the specifications of Intel's Xe-HPG DG2 graphics card. For starters, it is important to note that DG2 GPU will first come to laptops later this year. More precisely, laptops powered by Alder Lake-P processors will get paired with DG2 discrete GPU in the second half of 2021. The CPU and GPU will connect using the PCIe 4.0 x12 link as shown in the diagram below, where the GPU is paired with the Tiger Lake-H processor. The GPU has its subsystem that handles the IO as well.

A senior game developer relations engineer at Intel, Pete Brubaker, Tweeted late Wednesday that the company's DG2 discrete graphics card is "right around the corner," and that "it's about to get exciting." Brubaker's Tweet comes as the company is looking to recruit more engineers to work with its developer relations, the team that interfaces with game devs to optimize their engines and games for Intel's graphics architectures.

While the DG1, which was productized as the Iris Xe MAX graphics card, was essentially an iGPU-on-a-stick, the DG2 should spark a lot more interest. Based on a third-party foundry process, the DG2 is the first client graphics product based on the Xe HPG (high performance gaming) graphics architecture, and allegedly crams up to 512 execution units or 4,096 unified shaders—a 4.3x gain over the Iris Xe MAX. It's also rumored to ship with up to 16 GB of GDDR6 memory across a 256-bit wide memory bus. Whether it features DirectX 12 Ultimate features or not, remains to be seen, but it's becoming clear that Intel wants a crack at the high-volume e-sports market, with a product that's fast enough for competitive e-sports gaming, and capable of AAA.

Intel Graphics tweeted a marketing splash screen of its upcoming Xe HPG gaming discrete graphics architecture. There's not much to the video, except announcing the Xe HPG logo. It starts off with a depiction of the Xe LP architecture, on which the company's Gen12 iGPUs and Iris Xe MAX entry-level discrete GPUs are based; and swells into a larger silicon that grows in all directions. The animation could be a hint that Xe HPG chips will be an order of magnitude faster than the Iris Xe MAX, target serious gaming, and take the fight to both NVIDIA and AMD.

Intel is designing the Xe HPG graphics architecture for third-party silicon fabrication nodes, such as TSMC and Samsung, and could leverage a sub-10 nm node to significantly scale up from the Xe LP. A recent report pointed to the likelihood of 512 execution units on a certain Xe HPG variant (4,096 unified shaders) and contemporary GDDR6 memory, while Intel has the necessary IP to pull off DirectX 12 Ultimate logo readiness, including raytracing. Intel is likely eyeing a slice of the e-sports hardware segment, although a high-end GPU cannot be completely ruled out. Watch the video from the source link below.

Intel's chief architect and senior vice president of discrete graphics division, Mr. Raja Koduri, is said to be scheduled to present at Samsung Electronics Event day. With a presentation titled "1000X More Compute for AI by 2025", the event is called Samsung Foundry SAFE Forum. It is a global virtual conference designed to be available to everyone. So you might be wondering what is Mr. Koduri doing there. Unless you have been living under a rock, you know about Intel's struggles with node manufacturing. Specifically, the 10 nm node delays that show the company's efforts to deliver a node on time. The same is happening with the 7 nm node that also experienced significant delays.

Intel has a contract to develop an exascale supercomputer at Argonne National Laboratory, called Aurora. That supercomputer is using Intel's CPUs and the company's upcoming Xe GPUs. Since the company has problems with manufacturing and has to deliver the products (it is bound by several contracts) to its contractors and customers, it decided to look at external manufacturers for its products, specifically Xe graphics. Being that Mr. Koduri tweeted an image of him visiting Samsung Giheung Fab in Korea, and now presenting at the Samsung Foundry event, it is possible that Intel will tap Samsung's semiconductor manufacturing process for its Xe GPU efforts and that Samsung will be the contractor in charge.

Acer today announced the Swift 3X, a new laptop which will give consumers the first taste of Intel's discrete graphics solution powered by Xe. Remember that Intel's Xe is Intel's first discrete-class graphics architecture, whose development was helmed by former AMD graphics head Raja Koduri after Intel hired him just a week after he tendered his resignation with AMD. This is the first materialization of an Intel-developed, discrete graphics product for the consumer market, and thus should blow the lid on Intel's Xe performance. Whether or not the blue giant cements itself as a third player in the discrete graphics accelerator space - at first try - depends on the performance of this architecture.

The Swift 3X features the new Intel Iris Xe MAX discrete graphics solution paired with 11th Gen Intel Core processors "in order to offer creative professionals such as photographers and YouTubers unique capabilities and powerful on-the-go performance for work and gaming." The Swift 3X comes in at 1.37 kg (3.02 lbs), and Acer quotes up to 17.5 hours of up time in a single charge; if necessary, the Swift 3X can also be fast-charged to provide four hours of use in just 30 minutes.