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
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Jorgp2 - Thursday, March 18, 2021 - link
Can't believe I fell for thatkpb321 - Thursday, March 18, 2021 - link
Will Intel's card be the best card you can buy because it will be the only one actually in stock anywhere and they win by default?MenhirMike - Thursday, March 18, 2021 - link
Depends: How's the Mining performance of those cards?deil - Friday, March 19, 2021 - link
2016 nvidia kind.tomatotree - Friday, March 19, 2021 - link
I'd expect terrible at first, as none of the mining algos are optimized for its hardware yet. Once that happens (and it certainly will), who knows. But it should hopefully give gamers a chance to buy some first at least.haukionkannel - Friday, March 19, 2021 - link
Maybe. Just like They win cpu race, just by making cpus...MrCommunistGen - Thursday, March 18, 2021 - link
Depending on how many of these Intel can produce, this might be the best possible time for them to launch their dedicated GPU architecture.If they'd launched in, say, 2019, I could see these flying under the radar and maybe not selling well due to consumers entrenched in the AMD and Nvidia camps.
Even if price and performance are lackluster... as long as they mostly *just work*, Intel should be able to sell every last card simply because you can't buy any competing cards.
jeremyshaw - Thursday, March 18, 2021 - link
Don't get too excited. Intel's presentation at 2020 Hot Chips (covered here on Anandtech) notes for Xe HPG: External (as in foundry).Likely running into the same constraints as everyone else. Probably even contributing to it.
Alexvrb - Friday, March 19, 2021 - link
Aren't they fabbing it in-house? If they are, it will absolutely increase availability of cards in the market, no matter what... because they would be taxing a foundry that is NOT currently cranking out large dGPUs.BedfordTim - Friday, March 19, 2021 - link
TSMC apparently.