In the wake of the Corona crisis, the graphics card front has become quiet. The same applies to Intel's Xe architecture. However, references to the upcoming high-end graphics cards have now been discovered in an official data sheet that was already published in January.
What exactly was found?
Hardware Leaker @KOMACHI_ENSAKA discovered references to the Gen12 HP graphics chip in the Intel document entitled "Iris Plus Graphics and UHD Graphics Open Source" – "HP" stands for "High Performance".
The document by »New systolic pipeline addition on EU from Gen12 HP onwards«
What is expected from the Intel GPUs?
It was expected until mid-Februarythat Intel's Xe HP GPUs will have a maximum of four so-called “tiles” (chips) to 128 execution units (EUs), that is, a total of 512 EUs. Computed with eight computing cores per EU, this would have resulted in a maximum of 4,096 computing cores.
- MCM (Chiplet) design
- 1,2 and 4 tiles (chiplets)
- up to 128 EUs per chiplet
- 10nm manufacturing
The assumption was reasonable insofar as the low-power versions Xe LP for mobile devices and the desktop with the name DG1 already presented have 96 EUs on one tile.
According to the latest information, there is a tile the Xe HP GPUs, however, from 512 EUs. This means that the full expansion of the Xe HP chip could even have up to 16,384 cores. A leaked data sheet (picture above) also shows that the chip is designed for a TDP of 500 watts.
Intel Xe HP for enthusiasts and workstations
If the information turns out to be true, it should be a GPU for professional systems. However, the data sheet also shows that there should also be variants with only one and two tiles. Wccftech also dared to estimate performance:
- Intel Xe HP (Gen 12.5) 1-tile GPU, 512 EUs, 4,096 cores: 12.2 TFLOPs at 1.5 GHz and 150 watts
- Intel Xe HP (Gen 12.5) 2-tile GPU, 1,024 EUs, 8,192 cores: 20.48 TFLOPs at 1.25 GHz 300 watts
- Intel Xe HP (Gen 12.5) 4-tile GPU, 2,048 EUs, 16,384 cores: 36 TFLOPs at 1.1 GHz 400/500 watts
300 watts for an enthusiast graphics card for players seem quite realistic. Nevertheless, all of this is ultimately unconfirmed information and speculation.
Intel Xe will be available in three performance classes
Intel actually wanted to go deeper into the details of the Xe architecture at the Global Developers Conference (GDC) in March 2020. However, this was eliminated due to the Corona crisis.
The first graphics chips in the form of the Tiger Lake processors for laptops are expected towards the end of the year. However, this is not the HP, but the LP variant.
For 2021, Intel plans to do this with Ponte Vecchio, a GPU that is manufactured using the modern 7nm process and is to be used as a Xe HPC chip in data centers.
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