An intriguing entry has appeared on the Geekbench Browser site, the information was uploaded with a timestamp from this morning (11:07 am on April 20 to be specific) pointing to a mobile ASUS device that was tested in GeekBench 5. The archived info dump reveals that the subject matter of the benchmark was the ASUS ROG Ally handheld gaming console, which has received a lot of attention in recent weeks - with it being touted as a very serious alternative to Valve's Steam Deck, a handheld gaming PC that is quite popular with enthusiasts. The ROG Ally will need to offer a potent hardware package if it stands to compete directly with the Steam Deck, and the latest information confirms that this new contender is very promising in that department. Geekbench 5 awarded an impressive OpenCL score of 35498 to the RC71L variant of the ROG Ally, an RC71X-assigned model is known to exist but details of its exact nature have not been revealed. This particular ROG Alloy unit was running Windows 11 Home (64-bit) under the operating system's performance power plan.

The new entry on Geekbench Browser shows that the Ally is packing an AMD Ryzen Z1 Extreme APU, which appears to be a customized version of the Ryzen 7 7840U APU mobile platform chipset - previous rumors have indicated that the latter would be in the driving seat. Both Phoenix range SoCs share the basic 8 cores and 16 thread makeup, but the Z1 Extreme is capable of boosting up to 5.062 GHz from a base frequency of 3.30 GHz. AMD's Radeon 780M iGPU (RDNA 3) is expected to deal with the Ally's graphical aspect, but the benchmark info dump only provides scant details about the GPU (codenamed "gfx1103") - most notably the presence of six computer units, an 800 MHz max frequency, and access to 8.20 GB of video memory. Number crunching boffins have calculated that the Ally could field 768 FP32 cores, courtesy of the dual issue SIMD design inherent to RDNA 3.

Intel Graphics formally retired the Gen 9 graphics architecture that powered iGPUs found in the company's 6th Gen Core processors. The company continues support for the Gen 9.5 architecture that powers 7th thru 10th Gen processors. With up to 24 EU (execution units), the iGPU provided basic display that met Windows 8/8.1 and Windows 10 WHQL logo requirements, and supported Direct3D DDI up to API level 11_0. This "retirement" means that Intel Graphics will no longer provide regular driver updates, but relegate support for a much lower update cadence that only ticks when there are critical security or stability issues to fix. The last regular driver for these iGPUs is version 31.0.101.2115.

A new benchmark of the AMD Radeon 780M RDNA3-based iGPU has now been spotted in Geekbench, showing it to be on par with the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650. The benchmark was done on the announced AMD Ryzen 7 7840HS CPU, which is a part of AMD's 4 nm Ryzen 7040 "Phoenix" lineup. The CPU in question is an 8-core/16-thread SKU with 40 MB of cache. It works at 3.8 GHz base and 5.1 GHz boost clocks and has a TDP of 35 W to 45 W. The same CPU comes with Radeon 780M RDNA3 iGPU with 12 Compute Units (CUs), for a total of 768 Stream Processors, and works at 2700 MHz.

The Geekbench OpenCL benchmark was fired up on a Chinese laptop with 32 GB of RAM and running on the Windows balanced power plan, where it scored a decent 36,757 points. This score puts it somewhere around the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 and AMD Radeon RX 480 discrete graphics cards. This is an impressive result considering that this is a mid-SKU in the announced Ryzen 7040 series. Of course, we still do not know the specified TDP for this laptop, or what memory was used, so results might be slightly different. Since these laptops are yet to appear in retail, AMD is probably still tweaking the drivers, so we expect these numbers could be even higher for the full release.

It's almost cherry-blossom season in Japan, and MINISFORUM released a special edition mini PC to mark it. The UM773 SE has a pastel pink body color along with a cherry-blossom print. Under the hood, it rocks an AMD Ryzen 7 7735HS processor (6 nm, Zen 3+, "Rembrandt Refresh" silicon), with an 8-core/16-thread CPU, and a 12-CU RDNA2 iGPU (Radeon 680M). You get two DDR5 SO-DIMM slots to drop in your own memory, and an M.2-2280 NVMe SSD slot with PCI-Express 4.0 x4 wiring, to use your own SSD, and a 2.5-inch drive bay with SATA 6 Gbps.

Networking connectivity on the MINISFORUM UM773 SE include 2.5 GbE, WiFi 6E, and Bluetooth 5.2. USB connectivity includes USB4, for a type-C port that supports DisplayPort passthrough from the iGPU. There are a couple of 10 Gbps USB 3.2 Gen 2 type-C ports, a couple of such type-A ports, and a couple of USB 2.0 type-A. A couple of HDMI ports, and HD audio make for the rest of it. The box measures 127 mm x 128 mm x 47 mm (WxDxH). The UM773 SE is sold either as a barebones that lacks memory and SSDs; or as prebuilts with 1x 16 GB, 2x 8 GB, and 2x 16 GB memory; each with a 512 GB NVMe SSD.

Update Mar 10th: MINISFORUM confirmed the US price of the UM773 SE to be $429 for the barebones, $579 for the prebuilt with 16 GB memory and 512 GB SSD, $639 for the one with 32 GB memory and 512 GB SSD, and $679 for the top model with 32 GB memory and 1 TB SSD storage.

AMD's entry-level Ryzen 3 4300G APU, which was being sold in the OEM/SI channels, is sneaking its way into the retail PIB space, with Japanese retailers listing it as a retail part. Until now, you could only get the 4300G as part of a pre-built, or as part of a retail "bundle," where they would simply pull one of these chips out of a tray, install it on an entry-level A520 or A320 chipset motherboard, and sell along with a stick of memory. The 4300G is commanding a roughly $100 (equivalent) price, which could make sense for entry-level mom-and-pop PCs.

The Ryzen 3 4300G is based on the 7 nm "Renoir" silicon, and is a Socket AM4 processor with integrated graphics. The processor has one of its two CCXs disabled, leaving you with a 4-core/8-thread CPU based on the "Zen 2" microarchitecture, that has 512 KB of L2 cache per core, and 4 MB of L3 cache shared among the four cores. The processor also features a dual-channel DDR4 memory interface, a PCI-Express Gen 3 interface, and an iGPU based on the Radeon "Vega" graphics architecture. It has a TDP of 65 W.

Intel Graphics has introduced feature rivaling NVIDIA VSR (virtual super resolution) for Chromium-based web-browsers such as Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge, which enhances the quality of streaming video, both from lower resolutions to higher; as well as improving the quality at native resolution. This was discovered in the change-log of a Chrome build, which talks about the introduction of a "-features=IntelVpSuperResolution" command-line argument to start Chrome with, to enable the feature.

Apparently, the Intel VSR feature works on Intel iGPUs dating back to the 11th Gen Core ("Tiger Lake" and "Rocket Lake,") based on the Xe-LP graphics architecture. The feature should come particularly handy when trying to upscale online video from lower resolutions (such as SD 360p/480p or HD 720p), up to Full HD (1080p) or higher. It's reported that VSR is enabled by default on Chrome/Edge 110, and doesn't require that command-line argument. To use it, you will need Intel iGPU graphics drivers version 27.20.100.8681 or later.

According to SkatterBench, a website known for incredible overclocking attempts, we get to see AMD's Ryzen 7000 series integrated GPU get up to 42% performance improvement from overclocking. Specifically, the SKU used in the attempt was the Ryzen 9 7900 non-X model with 12 cores and 24 threads, clocked at 3.7 GHz base frequency and 5.4 GHz boost speed. The SKU contains a basic AMD GPU integrated into the package; however, not meant for any serious gaming tasks. Nonetheless, it is interesting to see what a two-core RDNA2 GPU clocked at 2.2 GHz managed to achieve once overclocked. The memory clock of the GPU is set to 2.4 GHz at stock.

Running at the base voltage of 0.997 volts under Furmark workload, the iGPU consumes around 38.5 Watts. However, the overclocking attempt pushed the voltage to 1.395 Volts, resulting in a 3.1 GHz iGPU frequency. The GPU Memory clock is now set to 3200 MHz, and the GPU+SOC power is 60.689 Watts, almost double compared to the stock settings. The overclocker used a GFX curve optimizer with various system tweaks to achieve these numbers. While the OC attempt was successful, the most significant performance improvement was a 42% increase, with some game titles averaging less. Below, the blue bar indicates stock, while the green bar indicates OC'd performance. You can check out the YouTube video as well to see more details.

Intel has reportedly deferred its orders for 3 nm wafers with TSMC, sources in PC makers tell Taiwan-based industry observer DigiTimes. Built on the TSMC N3 node, the wafers were supposed to power the Graphics tiles (containing the iGPU), of the upcoming "Arrow Lake" processors, which were originally on course for a 2024 release. The DigiTimes report detailing this development says that Intel's 3 nm wafer orders have been deferred to Q4-2024, which would realistically mean a 2025 launch for whatever product was designed to use 3 nm tiles. Advance orders for next-gen wafers by high-volume clients such as Intel, are usually placed several quarters in advance, so the foundry could suitably scale up its capacity.

AMD's next-generation RDNA4 graphics architecture will retain a design-focus on gaming performance, without being drawn into an AI feature-set competition with rival NVIDIA. David Wang, SVP Radeon Technologies Group; and Rick Bergman, EVP of Computing and Graphics Business at AMD; gave an interview to Japanese tech publication 4Gamers, in which they dropped the first hints on the direction which the company's next-generation graphics architecture will take.

While acknowledging NVIDIA's movement in the GPU-accelerated AI space, AMD said that it didn't believe that image processing and performance-upscaling is the best use of the AI-compute resources of the GPU, and that the client segment still hasn't found extensive use of GPU-accelerated AI (or for that matter, even CPU-based AI acceleration). AMD's own image processing tech, FSR, doesn't leverage AI acceleration. Wang said that with the company introducing AI acceleration hardware with its RDNA3 architecture, he hopes that AI is leveraged in improving gameplay—such as procedural world generation, NPCs, bot AI, etc; to add the next level of complexity; rather than spending the hardware resources on image-processing.

Intel's upcoming Meteor Lake processor family is supposedly looking good with the new performance/efficiency targets. According to the @OneRaichu Twitter account, we have a potential performance estimate for the upcoming SKUs. As the latest information notes, Intel's 14th-generation Meteor Lake will feature around a 50% increase in efficiency compared to the 13th-generation Raptor Lake designs. This means that the processor can use half the power at the same performance target at Raptor Lake, increasing efficiency. Of course, the design also offers some performance improvements besides efficiency that are significant and are yet to be shown. The new Redwood Cove P-cores will be combined with the new Crestmont E-cores for maximum performance inside U/P/H configurations with 15-45 Watt power envelopes.

For integrated graphics, the source notes that Meteor Lake offers twice the performance of iGPU found on Raptor Lake designs. Supposedly, Meteor Lake will feature 128 EUs running 2.0+GHz compared to 96 EUs found inside Raptor Lake. The iGPU architecture will switch from Intel Iris to Xe-LPG 'Xe-MTL' family on the 14th gen models, confirming a giant leap in performance that iGPU is supposed to experience. Using the tile-based design, Intel combines the Intel 4 process for the CPU tile and the TSMC 5 nm process for the GPU tile. Intel handles final packaging for additional tuning, and you can see the separation below.

Intel in an interview with Hardwareluxx shed more light on its second generation Xe graphics architecture, codenamed "Battlemage." There will be two key variants of "Battlemage,"—Xe2-LPG and Xe2-HPG. The Xe2-LPG (low-power graphics) architecture is a slimmed-down derivative of "Battlemage" that's optimized for low-power. It is meant for iGPUs (integrated graphics), particularly upcoming "disaggregated" Intel Core processors in which the iGPU exists on Graphics Tiles (chiplets). The iGPU powering the upcoming Core "Meteor Lake" processor is rumored to meet the full DirectX 12 Ultimate feature-set (something Xe-LP doesn't), and so it's likely that Xe2-LPG is getting its first outing with that processor. The Xe2-HPG (high performance graphics) architecture is designed squarely for discrete GPUs—either desktop graphics cards, or mobile discrete GPUs hardwired into laptops.

In the interview, Intel talked about how its first-generation Xe graphics IP had at least four separate product verticals based on the scalability of the product, and the specific application (Xe-LP for iGPUs and tiny dGPUs, Xe-HPG for client- and pro-vis discrete GPUs, Xe-HPC for scalar compute processors, and Xe-HP for data-center graphics). The company eventually axed Xe-HP as it felt the Xe-HPG and Xe-HPC architectures adequately addressed this segment. With AXG (accelerated compute group) being split up between the CCG (client computing group) and DCG (data-center group); Xe2-LPG and Xe2-HPG will be developed primarily under CCG, with a client and pro-visualization focus; while Xe-HPC will be developed as a scalar-compute architecture by DCG, which effectively leaves the Intel Arc Graphics team with just two verticals—to deliver a feature-rich iGPU for its next-generation Core processors, and a performance discrete GPU lineup so it can eat away market-share from NVIDIA and AMD—hopefully with better time-to-market.

Intel in its Q4-2022 Financial release call reiterated that its Core "Meteor Lake" processor remains on course for a 2H-2023 launch. The company slide does not mention the client form-factor the architecture targets, and there are still rumors of a "Raptor Lake Refresh" desktop processor lineup for 2H, which would mean that "Meteor Lake" will debut as a high-performance mobile processor architecture attempting to dominate the 7 W, 15 W, 28 W, and 35 W device market-segments, with its 6P+16E CPU that introduce IPC increases on both the P-cores and E-cores; and a powerful new iGPU. The slide also mentions that its succeeding "Lunar Lake" architecture is on course for 2024.

"Meteor Lake" is Intel's first chiplet-based MCM processor, in which the key components of the processor are built on various silicon fabrication nodes, based on their need for such a cutting-edge node; such that the cost-optimization upholds the economic aspect of Moore's Law. The compute tile, the die that has the CPU cores, features a 6P+16E setup, with six "Redwood Cove" P-cores, and sixteen "Crestmont" E-cores. At this point it's not known if "Crestmont" cores are arranged in clusters of 4 cores, each. The graphics tile features a powerful iGPU based on the newer Xe-LPG graphics architecture that meets full DirectX 12 Ultimate feature-set. The processor's I/O is expected to support even faster DDR5/LPDDR5 memory speeds, and feature PCIe Gen 5.

Intel Graphics today released the latest version of its Arc GPU Graphics Drivers. Version 101.4090 beta comes with launch-day optimization for "Forspoken." The company also fixed a couple of issues with this release. For Arc "Alchemist" discrete GPUs, an application freeze issue with "A Plague Tale: Requiem" has been fixed. Box corruptions noticed in "Need for Speed: Unbound," have also been fixed. For Intel Core processors with Xe LP-based iGPUs, a screenspace corruption issue with NFS: Unbound has been fixed; besides an intermittent application crash with Total War: Warhammer III in DirectX 11 mode, and color corruption in Battlefield: 2042. Grab the drivers from the link below.

DOWNLOAD: Intel Arc GPU Graphics Drivers 101.4090 beta

AMD today launched two distinct kinds of mobile processors, the Ryzen 7045 "Dragon Range" serves the 45 W H- and HX-segments of performance and enthusiast notebooks with CPU core counts of up to 16-core/32-thread; while the U-segment, P-segment, and a portion of the H-segment (ranges of 15 W, 28 W, and 35 W), will be led by the Ryzen 7040 "Phoenix Point." Unlike the "Dragon Range" MCM, "Phoenix Point" is a monolithic silicon built entirely on the TSMC 4 nm EUV foundry node, and introduces a wealth of process-level and system-level power-management features.

AMD "Phoenix Point" combines an 8-core/16-thread CPU based on the "Zen 4" microarchitecture, with a powerful iGPU based on the latest RDNA3 graphics architecture, and a feature-packed AI acceleration engine based on the XDNA architecture AMD built after the Xilinx acquisition. The CPU component is a fully-fledged "Zen 4" CCX, with 8 CPU cores featuring 1 MB of dedicated L2 cache per-core, and sharing a large 32 MB L3 cache. This is an increase from the previous generation "Rembrandt" and "Cezanne" dies that had a reduced 16 MB L3 shared among the eight "Zen 3" or "Zen 3+" CPU cores.

TechPowerUp today released the latest version of TechPowerUp GPU-Z, the popular PC graphics information, monitoring, and diagnostics utility. Version 2.52.0 adds support for AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX, RX 7900 XT, RX 6300 OEM; NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti, and a few rare "Ampere" based GPUs in circulation these days, including the RTX 3080 Ti 20 GB, RTX 3070 Ti based on GA102 silicon, RTX 3050 based on GA107, and the PCIe AIC version of the A800 80 GB accelerator. Detection is improved for the Xe LP-based iGPU of Intel Core "Raptor Lake" processors. NVIDIA GPUs with ECC memory now have ECC status reported in the Advanced panel. On GPUs where the boost frequency can't be read, the base frequency will be used to calculate fillrates. Clock speed detection for Intel Arc "Alchemist" GPUs has been improved. Vendor detection has been added for several new graphics card brands such as Corsair (gaming notebooks), Maxsun, and Wingtech.

DOWNLOAD: TechPowerUp GPU-Z v2.52.0

Intel as part of its development process with industry partners and OEMs, allegedly released technical documents in a bare URL that's worded to confirm that its next desktop processor socket will in fact be the LGA1851. We've had some idea since June 2021 that LGA1851 will succeed LGA1700, but this can be taken as a confirmation. Although with a higher pin-count, the LGA1851 package will be physically of an identical size to LGA1700, with mostly identical socket mechanism, so the new socket could maintain cooler compatibility with its predecessor. The additional 151 pins come from shrinking the "courtyard" (the region of the land grid in the center that lacks pins and instead has some electrical ancillaries).

The new Socket LGA1851 platform is expected to power Intel's "Meteor Lake-S" and "Arrow Lake-S" microarchitectures. Whether "Meteor Lake-S" gets the 14th Gen Core branding is a whole different question. Leaked benchmarks suggest that 2023 will be a rather slow year from Intel in the area of desktop processors, and that toward Q3-2023, the company will release the so-called "Raptor Lake Refresh" processors. These chips are likely built on the same LGA1700 package, and as we've seen from "Coffee Lake Refresh," could warrant a new generational branding to 14th Gen Core (as CFL Refresh formed the 9th Gen Core). Intel could increase clock-speeds, E-core counts, and other process/packaging-level innovations to segment these chips apart from existing 13th Gen Core "Raptor Lake." LGA1851 processors like "Meteor Lake" could debut chiplets for Intel, as these have their CPU cores, iGPU, memory-controllers, and uncore components, spread apart on chiplets built on various foundry nodes.

Keeping up with the cadence of two generations of desktop processors per socket, Intel will turn the page of the current LGA1700, with the introduction of the new Socket LGA1851. The processor package will likely have the same dimensions as LGA1700, and the two sockets may share cooler compatibility. The first processor microarchitecture to debut on LGA1851 will be the 14th Gen Core "Meteor Lake-S." These chips will feature a generationally lower CPU core-count compared to "Raptor Lake," but significantly bump the IPC on both the P-cores and E-cores.

"Raptor Lake" is Intel's final monolithic silicon client processor before the company pivots to chiplets built on various foundry nodes, as part of its IDM 2.0 strategy. The client-desktop version of "Meteor Lake," dubbed "Meteor Lake-S," will have a maximum CPU core configuration of 6P+16E (that's 6 performance cores with 16 efficiency cores). The chip has 6 "Redwood Cove" P-cores, and 16 "Crestmont" E-cores. Both of these are expected to receive IPC uplifts, such that the processor will end up faster (and hopefully more efficient) than the top "Raptor Lake-S" part. Particularly, it should be able to overcome the deficit of 2 P-cores.

AMD is preparing to expand its Ryzen 7000-series "Zen 4" desktop processor series with new SKUs, one of which is the Ryzen 7 7700 (non-X). Given past trends with non-X SKUs for the Ryzen 5000-series, the 7700 is very likely an OEM-only SKU to be featured in pre-built desktops. The inclusion of an iGPU with the Ryzen 7000-series changes things dramatically for AMD, as it makes these processors suitable for even home- and commercial desktops that lack discrete graphics. The Ryzen 7 7700 has the same 8-core/16-thread configuration as the Ryzen 7 7700X, but likely lower clock-speeds, due to the lower power-limits. The chip has a TDP of 65 W, compared to the 105 W of the 7700X; which means its package power tracking (PPT) power limit will be closer to 90 W, than the 140 W of the 7700X. This will also significantly lower the cooling requirements for the processor, and OEMs could use cost-effective air coolers. The exact clock-speeds, though, remain under the wraps.

The upcoming Intel Core i3-N300 is an upcoming entry-level mobile processor that only has "Gracemont" E-cores, no P-cores, and yet somehow isn't branded under Atom or Pentium Silver. This isn't just because Intel retired the entry-level brands in favor of a generic "Intel Inside" brand to be used on entry-level notebooks; but very likely because of the way these chips are architected.

The i3-N300 and i3-N305 were spotted in separate Geekbench submissions discovered by Benchleaks. The chip is identified as having 8 cores and 8 logical processors (threads), but its cache is identified as being 4x 64 KB L1I, with 4x 32 KB L1D, 1x 2 MB L2, and 1x 6 MB L3. It's possible that the chip's design is very similar to a conventional "Alder Lake" processor—with a centralized L3 cache and client interconnect fabric, an uncore, and an iGPU; but with no P-cores, just the two "Gracemont" E-core clusters, each with 2 MB of L2 cache shared among 4 cores.

Intel's next-generation "Meteor Lake" processor is the first mass-production client processor to embody the company's IDM 2.0 manufacturing strategy—one of building processors with multiple logic tiles interconnected with Foveros and a base-tile (essentially an interposer). Each tile is built on a silicon fabrication process most suitable to it, so that the most advanced node could be reserved for the component that benefits from it the most. For example, while you need the SIMD components of the iGPU to be built on an advanced low-power node, you don't need its display controller and media engine to, and these could be relegated to a tile built on a less advanced node. This way Intel is able to maximize its use of wafers for the most advanced nodes in a graded fashion.

Japanese tech publication PC Watch has annotated the "Meteor Lake" SoC, and points out that the vast majority of the chip's tiles and logic die-area is manufactured on TSMC nodes. The MCM consists of four logic tiles—the CPU tile, the Graphics tile, the SoC tile, and the I/O tile. The four sit on a base tile that facilitates extreme-density microscopic wiring interconnecting the logic tiles. The base tile is built on the 22 nm HKMG silicon fabrication node. This tile lacks any logic, and only serves to interconnect the tiles. Intel has an active 22 nm node, and decided it has the right density for the job.

Intel's future Meteor Lake APUs seem to be playing catch-up to AMD's integrated graphics in more ways than one. Twitter user Coelacanth's Dream has dug up information that indicates Intel's commitment to bring ray tracing support to even its IGP (Integrated Graphics Processing) tiles. According to bits and pieces from Intel Graphics Compiler (IGC) code patches, it seems to be confirmed that ray tracing support is indeed coming to the TSMC-made, 3 nm GPU tiles in Meteor Lake. The kicker here is the presence of flags that detect whether the iGPU is of the "iGFX_meteorlake" type - if so, IGC sets ray tracing support to enabled.

Puzzlingly, Intel's upscaling technology, Xe SuperSampling (XeSS) could be out of the picture - at least for now. It seems that IGC patches for the upcoming APU family still don't allow for DPAS (Dot Product Accumulate Systolic) instructions - instructions that rely on XMX (Intel Xe Matrix Extensions), the AI engines responsible for executing 128 FP16/BF16, 256 INT8, or 512 INT4/INT2 operations per clock. These low-precision operations are the soul of algorithmic supersampling technologies such as XeSS.

So you thought your Arc A380 graphics card, or the Gen12 Xe iGPU in your 12th Gen Core processors were good enough to munch through your older games from the 2000s and early 2010s? Not so fast. Intel Graphics states that the Xe-LP and Xe-HPG graphics architectures, which power the Gen12 Iris Xe iGPUs and the new Arc "Alchemist" graphics cards, lack native support for the DirectX 9 graphics API. The two rely on API translation such as Microsoft D3D9On12, which attempts to translate D3D9 API commands to D3D12, which the drivers can recognize.

Older graphics architectures such as the Gen11 powering "Ice Lake," and Gen9.5 found in all "Skylake" derivatives, feature native support for DirectX 9, however when paired with Arc "Alchemist" graphics cards, the drivers are designed to engage D3D9On12 to accommodate the discrete GPU, unless the dGPU is disabled. API translation can be unreliable and buggy, and Intel points you to Microsoft and the game developers for support, Intel Graphics won't be providing any.

Jon Peddie Research (JPR) provides some of the most authoritative and informative market-research into the PC graphics hardware industry. The firm just published a scathing editorial on the future of Intel AXG (Accelerated Computing Systems and Graphics), the business tasked with development of competitive discrete GPU and HPC compute accelerators for Intel. Founded to much fanfare in 2016 and led by Raja Koduri since 2016; AXG has been in the news for the development of the Xe graphics and compute architecture, particularly with the Xe-HP "Ponte Vecchio" HPC accelerator; and the Arc brand of consumer discrete graphics solutions. JPR reports that Intel has invested several billions of Dollars into AXG, to little avail, with none of its product lines bringing in notable revenues for the company. Xe-LP based iGPUs do not count as they're integrated with client processors, and their revenues are clubbed with CCG (Client Computing Group).

Intel started reporting revenues from the AXG business since Q1-2021, around which time it started selling its first discrete GPUs as the Intel DG1 Xe MAX, based on the same Xe-LP architecture powering its iGPUs. The company's Xe-HPG architecture, designed for high-performance gaming, was marketed as its first definitive answer to NVIDIA GeForce and AMD Radeon. Since Q1-2021, Intel has lost $2.1 billion to AXG, with not much to show for. The JPR article suggests that Intel missed the bus both with its time-to-market and scale.

Intel Graphics, with its latest Graphics Drivers 31.0.101.3222, changed the coverage of its latest driver updates. The company would be providing game optimizations and regular driver updates only for its Gen12 (Iris Xe), and Arc "Alchemist" graphics products. Support for Gen9, Gen9.5, and Gen11 iGPUs integrated with 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th generations of Intel processors, namely "Skylake," "Kaby Lake," "Coffee Lake," "Ice Lake," and "Cascade Lake," will be relegated to a separate, quarterly driver update cycle, which only covers critical updates and security vulnerabilities, but not game optimizations.

Intel's regular Graphics Driver cycle that includes Day-0 optimizations timed with new game releases, will only cover the Gen12 Xe iGPUs found in 11th Gen "Tiger Lake," "Rocket Lake," and 12th Gen "Alder Lake" processors; besides the DG1 Iris Xe graphics card; and Arc "Alchemist" discrete GPUs. Version 31.0.101.3222 appears to be a transitioning point, and so it has drivers from both branches included within a 1.1 GB package (the main branch supporting game optimizations for new GPUs, and the legacy branch for the older iGPUs). You can grab this driver from here.

One of AMD's big announcements this fall has been its entry-level "Mendocino" Ryzen 3 mobile processor, which enables the company to compete with Intel's latest-generation Pentium Gold-powered notebooks by combining older-generation IP with the latest I/O and fabrication node. The chip has possibly surfaced on the UserBenchmark database, as the Ryzen 3 7320U processor.

Built on the TSMC N6 (6 nm) silicon fabrication process, the "Mendocino" chip features a 4-core/8-thread CPU based on the older "Zen 2" microarchitecture. This CPU is a single CCX with four "Zen 2" cores sharing a 4 MB L3 cache. It features an iGPU based on the latest RDNA2 graphics architecture, but with just two compute units (128 stream processors). The chip also features a single-channel DDR5 memory interface, and a PCI-Express Gen 3 interface with four PCIe 3.0 general-purpose lanes, besides some USB and display outputs.