Since Intel announced Xe graphics cards, the industry has been waiting to see exactly where Intel will fit into the graphics card market.
People have been wondering whether Intel has what it takes to challenge both AMD and Nvidia. However, it looks like we’ll only be getting discrete mobile Xe graphics for now. It looks like Intel isn’t quite ready to wade through the competition just yet, especially as AMD has its Big Navi RDNA 2 GPUs and Nvidia has Ampere cards coming up soon.
That’s obviously not to say that Xe cards couldn’t be a real contender against the graphics card giants in the future. We’ll certainly be keeping an eye out anyway.
Where does that leave Intel’s Xe? Well, we’re going to take you through everything we know so far about Intel’s plans in the graphics card market.
Intel Xe Release Date
As this has been a volatile year for everyone, release dates have been hard to estimate. There’s always the chance that things will be delayed so we can’t be 100% sure when we’ll see the Xe cards.
However, Intel has said that they are aiming for a late summer/early Autumn 2020 release. Eagle-eyed Intel fans got excited when they spotted Intel’s Raja Koduri’s license plate. Koduri posted an image of a “THINKXE” license plate which coincidentally expires in June 2020. Could we see Xe release this month? Only time will tell.
There’s a good chance that it will be part of the Tiger Lake mobile CPU launch as those laptops are already expected to host Xe GPUs. So, it looks like we’ll get two big releases from Intel around the same time.
Intel Xe Specs and Performance
From what we’ve heard, it looks like Intel has split the Xe architecture into three segments. There’s the Xe-LP for entry-level gaming, the Xe-HP for pro-grade and enthusiasts, and the Xe-HPC which is designed for enterprise customers.
It looks like these GPUs will be based on roughly the same architecture as the Ice Lake Gen 11 graphics.
From benchmark figures, we saw that the Intel DG1 GPU has 96 execution units (EUs) and scored 5,538 points in 3DMark’s Fire Strike figures. This puts the DG1 performance in between Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 750 Ti which scores 5184 points and AMD’s Radeon RX 460 which scores 5924 points.
These numbers appear a bit underwhelming when compared to other mobile GPUs on the market today. This also seems to mirror the results we saw at CES 2020 earlier this year. There, the Intel DG1 discrete graphics card ran Warframe at 1080p on what looked like massively dialed down settings.
Overall, people aren’t impressed. However, it is early days so who can say for sure how they’ll perform once they’re released.
That being said, new benchmarks for Intel’s Tiger Lake CPUs have suggested that the Xe GPUs will help boost the overall performance. The recent leak could mean that Intel’s Xe graphics will be performing on par with the new AMD Ryzen 4000 APU series.
Intel Xe Pricing
Of course, with only minimal information about Intel Xe cards and no release date to speak of, it’s hard to know how much these cards will go for. As they are not going to be available as standalone cards to purchase, that makes it even harder to work out.
Given that Intel Xe graphics are likely not going to match AMD and Nvidia offerings, there’s a chance that Intel might instead try to compete on price. This is something that Intel has always struggled to do, particularly in comparison to AMD. So, it would be an interesting development if that’s Intel’s strategy to get Xe graphics cards off the ground.
We can take a guess at the pricing though. If we’re comparing the Intel Xe with a lower-end card like the Nvidia GTX 1650, it could be priced in the $150 to $200 range. If Xe is competing with mid-range cards, this could put the price range to around $300 to $400. $1,000 and above will be the price if Intel tries to push Xe as a high-end card. But we think this is pretty unlikely at the moment and would make things a lot harder for Intel in terms of competition.
As not a lot is yet known for sure on Intel Xe graphics cards, we will be sure to keep our eyes peeled for any new information. If you’re interested in learning more about Intel Xe, be sure to keep checking back here for updates as and when we see them.
What do you think of Intel’s Xe graphics cards? Can you see them bringing some real competition to the GPU market? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.