Intel's Architecture Day 2018: The Future of Core, Intel GPUs, 10nm, and Hybrid x86
by Dr. Ian Cutress on December 12, 2018 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
- Memory
- Intel
- GPUs
- DRAM
- Architecture
- Microarchitecture
- Xe
Going Beyond Gen11: Announcing the XE Discrete Graphics Brand
Not content with merely talking about what 2019 will bring, we were given a glimpse into how Intel is going to approach its graphics business in 2020 as well. It was at this point that Raja announced the new product branding for Intel’s discrete graphics business:
Intel will use the Xe branding for its range of graphics that were unofficially called ‘Gen12’ in previous discussions. Xe will start from 2020 onwards, and cover the range from client graphics all the way to datacenter graphics solutions.
Intel actually divides this market up, showing that Xe also covers the future integrated graphics solutions as well. If this slide is anything to go by, it would appear that Intel wants Xe to go from entry to mid-range to enthusiast and up to AI, competing with the best the competition has to offer.
Intel stated that Xe will start on Intel’s 10nm technology and that it will fall under Intel’s single stack software philosophy, such that Intel wants software developers to be able to take advantage of CPU, GPU, FPGA, and AI, all with one set of APIs. This Xe design will feed the foundation of several generations of graphics, and shows that Intel is now ready to rally around a brand name moving forward.
There was some confusion with one of the slides, as it would appear that Intel might be using the new brand name to also refer to some of it's FPGA and AI solutions. We're going to see if we can get an answer on that in due course.
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nathanddrews - Wednesday, December 12, 2018 - link
I know the meme about gaming on Intel graphics, but if they implement Adaptive Sync *combined* with some sort of low framerate compensation, it would make gaming on Intel IGP much less hilarious. Can Intel license FreeSync without using AMD GPU inside? I know FreeSync worked on KLG, but that had an AMD GPU.RarG123 - Wednesday, December 12, 2018 - link
Like many of AMD's things, FS's an open standard and royalty free. Anyone can use it.Ryan Smith - Wednesday, December 12, 2018 - link
More specifically, Freesync 1 just AMD's implementation of DisplayPort Adaptive Sync. Intel has to build their own implementation in their display controller and driver stack, but past that all the signaling aspects to the monitor are standardized.Topweasel - Wednesday, December 12, 2018 - link
Ryan, I thought that was reversed, that AMD worked on adding Adaptive Sync into the specs and worked on making sure it's implementation matched what they were doing with Freesync.kpb321 - Wednesday, December 12, 2018 - link
IIRC it's a bit of both. Adaptive Sync was present in the eDP standard for things like laptop monitors or tablets as a power saving feature. AMD brought this to the desktop side of things to use for variable framerates in games and helped the standard bring it over too.edzieba - Wednesday, December 12, 2018 - link
'Adaptive Sync' is effectively the eDP Panel Self Refresh ported over to the full DP spec.drunkenmaster - Wednesday, December 12, 2018 - link
Freesync utilises adaptive sync. Adaptive Sync is the technology on the screen side, a screen must support adaptive sync to be used by Freesync. Freesync is just the AMD side of it. If a adaptive sync capable screen is detected you can turn on freesync in drivers. Adaptive sync was a standard written up and proposed by AMD and given to I forget who it is now, Displayport group direct or to Vesa. They accepted it and implemented it pretty quickly but as with all things standards take a long time for get integrated into the next cycle or two of products.Anyone can use Adaptive sync panels, no one but AMD can use freesync as it's something specific to their hardware and drivers. intel will produce their own specific driver/implementation and just connected to adaptive sync panels in the same way.
porcupineLTD - Wednesday, December 12, 2018 - link
So Intel is going straight to chiplets on interposer, it will be interesting to see if AMD adopts this with Zen 3 or waits until Zen 4. Anyway its nice to see competition doing its job.Alexvrb - Wednesday, December 12, 2018 - link
We don't know yet exactly how much logic Intel is moving to the interposer. It looks awesome for mobile form factors! I think they will face some challenges to bring it to high-TDP desktop solutions, though.ajc9988 - Wednesday, December 12, 2018 - link
http://www.eecg.toronto.edu/~enright/micro14-inter... http://www.eecg.toronto.edu/~enright/Kannan_MICRO4... https://youtu.be/G3kGSbWFig4 https://seal.ece.ucsb.edu/sites/seal.ece.ucsb.edu/... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3RVwLa3EmM&t=...