According to reports from China, Intel will present its Xe-HPG DG2 at CES 2022, even though it might only be a teaser. There is still not much information about the actual target of Intel’s graphics cards, and it is unknown whether they will be able to compete with AMD RDNA 3 or NVIDIA Lovelace.
In Las Vegas, Intel will launch its first dedicated graphics cards, a rather complex component, as Raja Koduri explained at the time.
At CES 2022, the Intel Xe-HPG DG2 will be unveiled
Intel could have come up with a simpler name by now, but all kidding aside, the first gaming GPU to see the light of day is the Xe-HPG DG2. This was revealed by a well-known hardware store account in China that is sure to announce certain product launches, so we’ll let you know about it.
However, it should not be forgotten that Intel is preparing an event called Intel Innovation in October, a scenario that could be more suitable for the presentation of its graphics cards. There is little known about these GPUs, only names and EUs (Execution Units) are mentioned:
The flagship could be the DG2-512 SKU with 256 EUs, although other SKUs with 448 and 128 EUs have also leaked.
Predicted performance is poor, but this is attributed to poor driver optimization, low frequencies, and prototype GPUs.
Theoretically, there are several graphics cards in the DG2 series with Xe-HPG architecture, with the DG512 EU being the most powerful: 4096 cores, 256 bits, and a maximum of 16 GB GDDR6. Depending on demand and performance, there could be changes in the variants.
The GPU die would be around 396 mm², which is larger than the RX 6000 and RTX 3000. It is believed that the socket type will be BGA and the dimensions will be 37.5 x 43 mm. So the dimensions are not unreasonable and fit well with NVIDIA and AMD.
What about ray tracing? We know that NVIDIA uses RT Cores and Tensor Cores for ray tracing and DLSS, just as AMD uses Ray Accelerators and FidelityFX Super Resolution to boost performance. Koduri noted that there will be hardware that will help with supersampling, so we understand that it will have its analog.
The expected frequencies are 2.2 GHz, and the TDP is between 225 and 300 watts, depending on GPU performance.
We haven’t seen any visible models or prototypes, but the design of these Intel graphics cards is unknown: Only renderings were shown. We could see 6 graphics cards in total, but I don’t expect a battle at the top of the line (RTX 3090, RX 6900 XT, or RTX 3080 Ti).
Intel would attack with its Xe-HPG DG2 in the low, medium, and high-end range.