To finally begin, Intel saw fit to simplify the naming of its solutions. This new architecture removes the LP, LPG, HP, and HPG naming schemes, which were quite confusing to the average user (and to us).
This new architecture brings many changes compared to the first generation Xe. The idea with this new architecture is to obtain greater flexibility of use, better workload management and less software overhead.
All about the Intel Xe2 architecture
The key point of these new graphics cards lies in a from scratch design of the Intel Xe2 architecture which corrects various important problems present in the Xe “Alchemist” architecture. The slides presented by Intel offer a performance efficiency improvement of up to x12.5.
This new GPU design provides greater flexibility and is highly scalable. The Lunar Lake processors will use an iGPU with Xe2 architecture, a design that will also be used for future high-end Arc graphics cards that could arrive later this year.
The main new features of these solutions are based on completely redesigned second generation cores. Additionally, it includes significantly improved vector engines and an expanded top-level cache. New XMX engines are also included, as well as performance and efficiency improvements thanks to an improved interface.
The number of ray tracing units (RTUs) is increased to support real-time ray tracing. We don’t know the performance improvement it will offer over the previous generation in games that support this technology, but it should be substantial. Additionally, it is complemented by Intel XeSS, the company’s own image resizing technology.
GPUs integrated into Lunar Lake will have up to 8 Xe2 cores. What’s interesting is that all 4 Xe2 cores constitute a single render slice. It is emphasized that performance is improved by 50% in ISO power compared to the previous generation.
Each core is associated with an XMX unit and can offer power of up to 67 TOPS. The new Lunar Lake can offer up to 120 TOPS of power for AI, adding the 48 TOPS of the NPUs and the 5 TOPS of the CPU itself.
This new design incorporates a new display engine that enables 8K resolutions at 60 Hz with 10-bit HDR decoding. Additionally, it features up to 8K@60Hz 10-bit HDR encoding, as well as AVC, VP9, H.265 HEVC, AV1 codecs and the new VCC engine. On the other hand, the engine supports HDMI 2.1, DisplayPort 2.1 and eDP 1.5.
The new VCC engine offers a noticeable reduction in bitrate and delivers the same quality as the AV1. It even supports adaptive resolution streaming and encoding of on-screen content.
The new Xe2 architecture is characterized by support for the most modern DX12 APIs. The DX9 support featured by Alchemhist GPUs is left behind.
