Intel Iris Xe Video Cards Now Shipping To OEMs: DG1 Lands In Desktops (anandtech.com) 14
Ryan Smith, writing at AnandTech: Following plans first unveiled last year during the launch of their DG1 GPU, Intel sends word this morning that the first Iris Xe video cards have finally begun shipping to OEMs. Based on the DG1 discrete GPU that's already being used in Intel's Iris Xe MAX laptop accelerators, the Iris Xe family of video cards are their desktop counterpart, implementing the GPU on a traditional video card. Overall, with specifications almost identical to Xe MAX, Intel is similarly positioning these cards for the entry-level market, where they are being released as an OEM-only part. As a quick refresher, the DG1 GPU is based on the same Xe-LP graphics architecture as Tiger Lake's integrated GPU. In fact, in broad terms the DG1 can be thought of as a nearly 1-to-1 discrete version of that iGPU, containing the same 96 EUs and 128-bit LPDDR4X memory interface as Tiger Lake itself. Consequently, while DG1 is a big first step for Intel -- marking the launch of their first discrete GPU of the modern era -- the company is planning very modestly for this generation of parts. The first DG1 GPUs were shipped in the fall as part of Intel's Iris Xe MAX graphics solution for laptops. At the time, Intel also indicated that a desktop card for OEMs would also be coming in 2021, and now, right on schedule, those desktop cards have begun shipping out. Further reading: Intel's Iris Xe DG1 Graphics Cards Not Compatible with AMD, Older Systems.
will not work with AMD's CPUs at all. anit trust? (Score:4, Insightful)
will not work with AMD's CPUs at all. anit trust issue?
Possibly (Score:3)
It looks like, even with Intel chipsets and CPUs, support is very limited. I'd imagine it's a support issue. If Intel says it never intends to support any AMD chip, they might have a problem.
Re: (Score:3)
Well, they might just be embarrassed to allow it in systems where the integrated graphics can be faster :)
We'll see if DG2, which is supposed to be a capable part, will be available for all systems.
It's roughly on par with a GTX 1030 or RX 550 (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
anit trust issue?
Nope, not at all. You're under no obligation to make your device support any other product. You're only under obligation to have a level playing field when you openly do support other products. An anti-trust issue would be if Intel forced NVIDIA not to support AMD CPUs, or used their market power to prevent motherboard makers adopting AMD, or tweaked the standards in such a way that AMD incurred a large expense / performance / compatibility hit.
But you are never under any obligation to support someone else'
lazy or evil? (Score:2)
I guess the lack of support for other systems _could_ be a semi technical one, where they use some AVX-512/etc instructions they consider critical to the board performance. Or they could have just cheaped out of the $.02 option ROM and put the UEFI driver in the firmware, rather than on the board itself.
So this could just be lazy/lame engineering vs more of intel's market segmentation bulls**t.
Un-welded iGPUs (Score:4, Interesting)
Since these things only work on coffeelake S and cometlake S using only certain midrange and low range chipsets that have special bioses, this is actually worse than an iGPU. At least the iGPU works in all the chipsets.
Despite denials from Intel, this certainly seems a lot like they're taking cpu dies where the the cpu part is dead and just selling the iGPU part after doing the bare minimum to get it up and running.
I wonder if the higher end cards will have the same problems when they show up.
Re: (Score:2)
The Xe architecture is supposed to be new, so it is probably not some CPU reduced to its HD graphics part.
Despite not liking Intel very much, I want to see what DG2 can do. The power efficiency the first articles suggest is promising. Also, graphics cards are generally in short supply at the moment, so a new supplier who helps fill the demand is welcome. Even Intel.
We really need more than red and green (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
People have tried: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
You can implement a GPU on an FPGA (poorly) and S3 opened their design as well (for a fee) if you're happy with an S3 Virge on a PCIe bus. We use the S3 primarily because it allows accurate timings through a zero-buffer system, but you have to be happy with 1024x768 and I highly doubt you can program a game for it (no driver/OpenGL/DirectX support)
Do you mean... like this? (Score:2)
https://www.eetimes.com/rv64x-... [eetimes.com]
Still early days though.
Re: (Score:2)
Because ... it's hard for an open-source project to match the crazy train of two companies fighting with 1000s of employees and decades of experience ?
For that to happen you can't start from scratch. You need some pretty neat computing chip with serious backing, or a radical shift in the computing paradigm which would lower the bar for new competitors to emerge.
Intel could be that 3rd company as they have some GPU experience, they have some computing experience and they have the money to fund the effort.
no thanks (Score:1)