Intel's Chief Architect Raja Koduri has posted what appears to be the upcoming Xe HPG GPU from Intel. Raja is well known for dropping cryptic hints - some of which are deciphered almost instantly while some take months. Videocardz did a CSI enhance-enhance analysis on the image posted and sharpened up quite a few visuals for us as well as correctly noting that the benchmark was running a test that could only have been run on the HPG GPU.
Intel Xe HPG GPU spotted in Intel's Labs
I am talking of course about the DXR or raytraced 3D Test. The Intel Xe HPG GPU will feature a ton of new features including hardware-based ray tracing. This is the tweet that Raja posted and as you can see (if you enhance-enhance in enough), the 3DMark screen shows the DXR test on the extreme right side of the window - implying this is either the Xe HPG (aka DG2) GPU.
From 2012 to 2021 - same Intel Folsom lab, many of the same engineers with more grey hair , I was at Apple back then, getting hands on with pre-production crystalwell, 9 years later playing with a GPU that’s >20x faster! pic.twitter.com/RgmRJuhOXw
— Raja Koduri (@Rajaontheedge) March 12, 2021
Here is a zoomed-in version of the actual GPU running with what appears to be a CPU cooler and a heatsink:
The GPU in question is on a test-board that features a high flow CPU-style cooler and heatsink. If Raja is teasing the GPU then we are likely looking at on-shelve availability in a few months. It took the DG1 roughly 6 months from going from the final prototype testing to being officially announced and if the same holds, we might see Xe HPG in some form before the year is over.
Rumor: Intel Xe HPG GPU could get 960EUs with GDDR6 memory in 2021
According to a tweet by twitter user Raichu (which has still been deleted), Intel's Xe HPG could have 960 EUs instead of the expected 512 EUs for the top-end model. This will increase the expected core count from 4096 to 7680 and also significantly increase the card's expected TFLOP rating if true.
According to the leaker, Intel is currently evaluating a SKU with 960 EUs. Intel has previously confirmed that Xe HPG will have just one tile and the biggest tile we have seen had 512 EUs so that was the theoretical maximum that the company implied. If this rumor turns out to be true then it might be that Intel is deciding to change that decision and go with binned versions of a 2 tile concept (430 EUs each - which would indicate a binned die from Xe HP). This would obviously help them remain more relevant and competitive against offerings from NVIDIA and AMD.
Intel's Xe HPG lineup is slated to arrive sometime in 2021 according to known twitter leaker @Mebiuw and the GPU is expected to have either 6GB or 8GB of GDDR6 for the first launch. At any rate, it is clear that for their first entry into the gaming segments, intel is going for a mainstream approach instead of an Ampere/Navi-slayer and would likely be targetting the price/perf sweet spot. Intel has the financial resources to subsidize their GPUs greatly and sell them to gamers cheap to establish market share and Xe HPG should be the perfect tool to do that.
Additional background on Intel's Xe HPG
While Xe HP and HPC utilize HBM memory, Intel wants its HPG branding to be more budget-friendly since its targetted dead center at gamers. This is why the architecture is equipped with GDDR6 memory. Now while the company was very tight-lipped about the architecture they did confirm that the GPU will feature hardware dedicated ray-tracing support and will be coming sometime in 2021.
Probably the biggest reveal was the fact the graphics card will be made on an external process (likely TSMC) which would mean that it will not be tied down by any foundry delays that Intel may face. [opinion] Since its coming in 2021, I would guess that TSMC's 7nm or 6nm process would start to be freed up by then with AMD etc transitioning to 5nm and that would become the most feasible process for this GPU. [/opinion]
In an attempt to get further details about Xe HPG, I asked Raja Koduri whether the GPU would be MCM based or single tile and while he did not answer the question directly, he told me to refer to the packaging details shown in their GPU cadence slides. See multi-tile GPUs like Xe HP require special EMIB and Co EMIB packaging and Xe HPG is listed as having a "Standard" package. This confirms that the GPU is going to ship with 1 tile of Xe HPG.
The scalability arch in the Xe HPG philosophy also indicates that the first GPU is a trial run for the company and if it works well, scaling it upwards should be trivial. Although the first Xe HPG GPU is starting with a single tile, if the response is good, then the company can easily scale to more tiles and exponentially increase the performance of their GPUs. What's more, Intel is working on a unified driver stack (for example the drivers for Tiger Lake's Xe GPU already work with DG1).
