Intel finally launched its first Xe graphics cards

Intel’s first batch of Xe graphics cards have finally arrived. Kind of. While not available for purchase as stand-alone GPUs, Intel has announced that it has finally started shipping them to system builders around the world for use in entry-level desktop PCs. .

I’ve been eagerly awaiting the launch of Intel Xe GPUs ever since we first saw them at CES 2020. At the time, it was Intel’s prototype DG1 that took center stage, and the first crop of today’s Iris Xe graphics cards is based on this same design.

Externally, they are quite different from Intel’s first prototype. So far, two models have been confirmed: the one shown above, which was made by Asus, and another quite bluer version pictured below by Colorful. It’s not yet clear if we’ll see more manufacturers launching their own Iris Xe cards in the coming months, but given the current shortage of PC hardware in general, it’s no surprise that Intel is starting out small rather than to make a loud noise.

This seems like a pretty modest launch overall, as Intel says their first pair of Iris Xe graphics cards will only ship with 4GB of memory, which puts them quite on the lower end of the graphics spectrum. . They’ll also have 80 execution units (Intel’s equivalent of Nvidia’s CUDA cores and AMD’s stream processors), which is actually a bit below the 96 best European specs that Intel previously described. as part of their overall Xe-LP (or low power) micro-architecture. As for the rest of their specs, details are still thin on the ground at the moment.

This is because the only other information Intel has confirmed so far is that the cards will have three display outputs, as well as support for hardware video decoding and encoding acceleration (including Support AV1) decoding, adaptive sync and HDR display. They’ll also have some degree of AI capability thanks to Intel’s DP4a deep learning inference technology, but if not, that’s your lot.

We’re also not sure when these Xe-powered OEM systems will start to go on sale, but I imagine we’ll see them popping up in the next few months as system builders start pushing their shipments. I’ll be interested to see exactly what kind of PC they end up in as well. Intel says it is currently targeting “mainstream and small to medium business users” with these first two Iris Xe cards, but with so little information to track at this time, it is difficult to say whether they will be real competitors. other low-end GPUs, such as Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 1650 or AMD’s Radeon RX 5500 XT. We’ll just have to wait and see.