Intel Xe-HPG performance gaming graphics card appeared in live photos, but it will be released at the end of the year
The first image of an engineering sample of the Intel Xe-HPG video card appeared on the web. It should be Intel’s first high-performance graphics accelerator targeted at the consumer market and specifically for gaming desktops.
The engineering sample images were shown in the video on the YouTube channel Moore’s Law is Dead, which was previously marked by truthful leaks about Intel products. The graphics card shown is equipped with a fairly large cooling system with a pair of fans and an aluminum heatsink with heat pipes. It is noted that the photo shows one of three options for engineering samples of Intel Xe-HPG graphics cards that exist at the moment.
It is reported that the accelerator is based on a GPU with 512 execution units (Execution units, EU), which means the presence of 4096 shaders. According to previous rumors, this GPU will form the basis of Intel’s flagship gaming graphics card. There are also 384 and 256 EU versions to be offered.
The source reports that the GPU’s maximum clock speed in the shown video card in Boost mode reaches 2.2 GHz. About the same amount is offered by AMD Radeon RX 6000 series accelerators. The volume of video memory GDDR6 is 16 GB, and they are connected via a 256-bit bus. The TDP level of the shown video card is quite high – up to 275 W. The sample is equipped with a pair of ports for additional power: one with six and eight contacts.
According to the source, the 512 EU flagship Intel Xe-HPG will offer performance between the GeForce RTX 3070 and RTX 3080, which could be considered a pretty good result for Intel’s first attempt to enter the flagship gaming graphics market. It is also reported that Intel is preparing an analog of NVIDIA DLSS AI anti-aliasing technology, which will be called XSS. Support for hardware-accelerated ray tracing is also possible. But it is not yet known whether these capabilities will be available immediately – Intel still has a lot of work with the software, the source specifies.
Finally, it is reported that it is unlikely that the flagship Intel Xe-HPG with 512 EU will be released earlier than the fourth quarter of this year. The wide availability of new items should be expected only in 2022.