Intel Drops Teaser For Upcoming Xe-HPG GPU Architecture
by Ryan Smith on March 18, 2021 5:00 PM EST
With the launch of their first-iteration Xe-LP architecture now firmly in the proverbial rearview mirror, Intel’s GPU division has turned its sights towards its next consumer-focused GPU architecture, Xe-HPG. Today the company has posted a very light teaser video advertising the forthcoming architecture.
Xe HPG microarchitecture teaser = 🍬👀 pic.twitter.com/kdzBokBiW4
— Intel Graphics (@IntelGraphics) March 18, 2021
The brief, 30 second promotional video highlights how Xe-HPG is built on top of Intel’s current Xe-LP architecture. And while there aren’t any concrete technical details disclosed within the otherwise abstract video, it’s notable that the video does briefly show 5 layers of blocks on the Xe-HPG chip. Assuming for the moment that Intel isn’t being quite literal here – a 5 layer GPU would be extravagant and hard to cool, to say the least – it’s more likely an allusion to the number of Execution Units (EUs) or some other aspect of the architecture.
Finally, the video also includes a short block of binary text as a further game for the audience to play.
10100000
11101101
11010000
For the moment we don’t have a solid idea of what it means. But no doubt someone will figure it out before too long.
Otherwise, this will no doubt be the first of many teasers for Xe-HPG. While Intel hasn’t provided a more recent roadmap for chips based on the architecture, the company previously announced in 2020 that they were aiming for a 2021 launch. And with the first DG2 chip already in the labs as of October, we know that Intel is well underway in bringing up Xe-HPG silicon.
Update (03/19): Sharp-eyed sleuths have since solved the binary code mystery. As it turns out, the digits are for an IPv4 address, which leads to https://xehpg.intel.com/. According to Intel's page, a scavenger hunt is starting on the 26th, so it looks like Intel will have some additional games for audiences to play.
Source: Intel
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
50 Comments
View All Comments
ozzuneoj86 - Friday, March 19, 2021 - link
I'm busting out my collection of Real3D Starfighters in preparation for this event.webdoctors - Friday, March 19, 2021 - link
This is so embarrassing, how do ppl work there know they;re just shoveling crap? I guess anything for a paycheck right?They don't even give an explanation on why their prior dGPUs failed and try baby steps like scaling up their integrated offerings into discrete ones for folks to work with.
mode_13h - Friday, March 19, 2021 - link
> They don't even ... try baby steps like scaling up their integrated offerings into discrete ones for folks to work with.Where have you been?? Intel has been scaling up their chipset & integrated GPUs for the last 1.5 decades!!
They even rolled out Xe (Gen 12, if we're counting) in Tiger Lake laptop chips with up to 96 EUs, which is 4x what Skylake had (after scaling up Gen 11 to 64 EUs, in Ice Lake laptops). And then, they actually built that into a sort of development vehicle and OEM dGPU, commercially launched at the end of last year. If that's not baby steps, I don't even know what is!
Seriously, learn some facts, dude. You could start by giving this a good read:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_graphi...
Mikad - Friday, March 19, 2021 - link
No matter how good the card is, I'm (maybe more than a) little worried about the drivers. The developers are optimizing their games to play well on NVidia's and AMD's cards and still, NVidia and AMD both regularly release a new driver when a AA/AAA game is released. There must be thousands of game specific profiles/optimizations in their drivers by now.On the other hand, I've often wondered why game specific drivers are released so often in the GPU world. The games are using standards like DX12, Vulkan etc. so what is causing the need to release GPU drivers so often?
mode_13h - Friday, March 19, 2021 - link
> I'm (maybe more than a) little worried about the drivers.Intel has been seriously supporting games on their iGPUs since Sandybridge, if not before. Xe looks to be an evolutionary outgrowth of that architecture, and you can already read about driver support on Tiger Lake (which is also Xe-based).
> I've often wondered why game specific drivers are released so often in the GPU world. The games are using standards like DX12, Vulkan etc. so what is causing the need to release GPU drivers so often?
In a never-ending race for the best benchmarks, GPU vendors have resorted to putting game-specific optimizations in their drivers.
Also, those APIs are undergoing continual enhancements and receiving extensions, which means new drivers.
And when new GPUs launch? You guessed it: new drivers!
Also, bugfixes? New drivers.
So, yeah. Lotsa driver releases.
DigitalFreak - Friday, March 19, 2021 - link
I wonder if Intel's Bullshitter in Chief Ryan Shart will be shouting from the rooftops about one meaningless benchmark where the HPG beats Nvidia and AMD by a small margin.Kurosaki - Friday, March 19, 2021 - link
Aaaand will cost 3usd less...PS123 - Monday, March 22, 2021 - link
LOL. Intel’s marketing strategy has been questionable of late. Trying to revenge Apple for divorcing them. They are have literally strangled the life out of 14nm++++++++++++++++ or whatever back port of 5nm they will come up with next. And now they want to join in with Teams Red and Green. Good way to create Team RGB of gaming graphics. Intel are in between a rock and a hard place right now. They MUST merge with AMD to survive the ARM RISC onslaught that is happening right now. All it will take is Microsoft to provide proper ARM compatibility with Windows and Intel’s days are looking to being numbered in the x86 world.mode_13h - Monday, March 22, 2021 - link
Such a merger or aquisition would be unlikely to get approved.PS123 - Monday, March 22, 2021 - link
There were also geographical coordinates found in the video leading to a spot just west of Goat Island, Niagara Falls.