News Intel GPUs - Intel launches A580

[jpiniero]

Intel to officially announce its first Arc Alchemist graphics cards for laptops on March 30th - VideoCardz.com

It’s finally happening, Intel to launch first Arc GPUs in March The promise has been made, and Intel intends to fulfil it. Intel confirmed it will launch its first discrete graphics cards in the first quarter, and this is indeed happening. The first wave of discrete GPUs will be for laptops...

videocardz.com

Mobile Launch is on the 30th.

 

[mikk]

About compatibility and software tuning from Lisa Pearce:

In general, software tuning is critical to deliver maximum performance on GPUs, but it will take some time for us to mature our GPU stack for all applications. So, to accelerate performance today, we have developed application optimization techniques (such as shader tuning) that ensure top applications deliver a great experience, while our compiler matures in parallel. These optimizations are now in place for the top 50 applications, and we are rapidly expanding our coverage to the top 100.

Application compatibility is also critical for our users, and while we expect nearly all applications to run, we’ve tested the top 100 applications for compatibility and performance, and we are expanding or efforts to cover the top 200 applications.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Sounds like it may be awhile before they get around to indie titles, old games, etc.

 

[IntelUser2000]

A370M = "Up to 2x in Metro Exodus" over Iris Xe.

Sounds like it may be awhile before they get around to indie titles, old games, etc.

They don't need explicit support for every game, and their iGPU has been around for years.

Legacy compatibility won't be that bad. Actually personally I've seen more issues with modern titles than older ones.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

Legacy compatibility won't be that bad.

Indeed. I have had plenty of old games (15-20 years, even some DX5-7 based ones) running perfectly on my laptops old HD500. Xe/Arc won't be worse.

That was before I had to switch it to Linux Mint, since MS made it unusable due to ballooning Windows Updates. But running them though Wine isn't worse actually.

 

[IntelUser2000]

Indeed. I have had plenty of old games (15-20 years, even some DX5-7 based ones) running perfectly on my laptops old HD500. Xe/Arc won't be worse.

HD500? You mean the Skylake generation graphics?

Yes, this is the only reason Intel is IMO a serious contender in the graphics space unlike previous newcomers(SiS and Via come to mind). They have a big basis to build upon. Xe is fundamentally Gen based, meaning it's distant ancestor is Extreme Graphics, and the one more resembling it is GMA X3000.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

HD500? You mean the Skylake generation graphics?

Apollo Lake actually (N3350). But yeah, Gen9 it is.

 

[igor_kavinski]

I have had plenty of old games (15-20 years, even some DX5-7 based ones) running perfectly on my laptops old HD500.

It's a miracle those games didn't object to the newer OS and refuse to even start. Must have been well-written OS version agnostic code.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

It's a miracle those games didn't object to the newer OS and refuse to even start. Must have been well-written OS version agnostic code.

In my experience, it's not the old games themselves that are the problem. They usually run just fine, even if you have to use the compatibility tool occasionally. It's the various DRM schemes from back then that refuse to work on newer Windows versions.

gog.com is also a good place to find working old games.

 

[IntelUser2000]

It's a miracle those games didn't object to the newer OS and refuse to even start. Must have been well-written OS version agnostic code.

Yea well Windows 11 still shares the NT core base that was introduced with Vista.

It was part of the reason Vista had compatibility issues, but Microsoft is actually pretty good on working that out. Read about the immense work they put in the mid 1990s to get even some obscure applications working. That's why the WIntel ecosystem is known as horizontally integrated.

When those games first came out, some had issues, but I guess eventually they fixed those. Look at @Shivansps experience. DX12 titles have more problems than DX11.

Since I was playing original Age of Empires the other day by just right clicking and enabling compatibility mode in the year 2022, I very much like it.

 

[gdansk]

Yea well Windows 11 still shares the NT core base that was introduced with Vista.

Windows wisely made applications target Win32 API. Most Windows applications are not too dependent directly on the kernel and Microsoft maintains pretty good backward compatibility for Win32 applications.

 

[Shivansps]

It's a miracle those games didn't object to the newer OS and refuse to even start. Must have been well-written OS version agnostic code.

That is thanks to Win32 API and high level graphics apis like DX/OGL. You are still going to run into some issues in some cases unfortunately.

We are not going to have the same luck with low level apis and i hope they maintain a good backward compatibility with UWP, well see.

 

[IntelUser2000]

The Acer Swift X with Arc is going to be available to buy sometime in May.

So really the mobile is coming at a not too dissimilar time from desktop, because mobile takes few months to get implemented while desktop versions are available on Day 1.

 

[mikk]

The Acer Swift X with Arc is going to be available to buy sometime in May.

So really the mobile is coming at a not too dissimilar time from desktop, because mobile takes few months to get implemented while desktop versions are available on Day 1.

Maybe it isn't the first.

Samsung Galaxy Book2 with Intel Arc inside was already on sale before official launch date

Intel Arc laptop GPUs are scheduled to be announced at the end of the month and retailers have already started listing units online. Such is the case with the newly announced Samsung Galaxy Book2.

www.neowin.net

 

[igor_kavinski]

Intel IGC 1.0.10713 Adds Ray-Tracing Support - Phoronix

The Intel Graphics Compiler (IGC) that is open-source and used by the driver stacks on both Windows and Linux is up to version 1.0.10713 and with this milestone is functional ray-tracing support in preparation for upcoming Intel Arc graphics processors with hardware ray-tracing support.

Wonder if all Arc GPUs will have raytracing or only the mid to high end ones.

 

[Glo.]

Intel IGC 1.0.10713 Adds Ray-Tracing Support - Phoronix



Wonder if all Arc GPUs will have raytracing or only the mid to high end ones.

Both SOC1 and SOC2 have RT capabilities. SOC3 will also have it. Its the inherent part of the architecture.

 

[igor_kavinski]

What is the expectation of Intel beating 6500 XT's RT performance at the $199 price point? I think with Intel's driver track record, it won't happen.

 

[Glo.]

What is the expectation of Intel beating 6500 XT's RT performance at the $199 price point? I think with Intel's driver track record, it won't happen.

Performance in what? RT, new games, old games?

 

[jpiniero]

It's official... Intel is too late. AMD cards, while you are still paying well above MSRP, is easily available. They better be amazing at mining or it's going to be difficult to sell.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Performance in what? RT, new games, old games?

Just with RT, say in Control or Cyberpunk.

 

[uzzi38]

What is the expectation of Intel beating 6500 XT's RT performance at the $199 price point? I think with Intel's driver track record, it won't happen.

In RT I'd be surprised if they don't. Yeah Intel has issues with drivers, but the 6500XT has the issue of it's VRAM capacity + PCIe bus which absolutely kills it in RT enabled games, where 4GB is not reliably enough for 1080p.

 

[igor_kavinski]

In RT I'd be surprised if they don't. Yeah Intel has issues with drivers, but the 6500XT has the issue of it's VRAM capacity + PCIe bus which absolutely kills it in RT enabled games, where 4GB is not reliably enough for 1080p.

I'm skeptical because Intel has their own engineers and maybe some AMD engineers who jumped ship with Raja. Their own engineers can't be experts at RT due to inexperience and the ex-AMD engineers, well, unless at least one of them is a renowned expert in their field and devised some groundbreaking RT algo to lower the computing demands of it, I think it will be tough for Intel to compete in RT capability. Also, if they had an advantage, they would probably be touting it in demos. Raja wouldn't pass up an opportunity to gloat.

 

[NTMBK]

I'm skeptical because Intel has their own engineers and maybe some AMD engineers who jumped ship with Raja. Their own engineers can't be experts at RT due to inexperience and the ex-AMD engineers, well, unless at least one of them is a renowned expert in their field and devised some groundbreaking RT algo to lower the computing demands of it, I think it will be tough for Intel to compete in RT capability. Also, if they had an advantage, they would probably be touting it in demos. Raja wouldn't pass up an opportunity to gloat.

Intel has been doing raytracing demos since the Larrabee in 2009: https://techreport.com/news/17641/intel-shows-larrabee-doing-real-time-ray-tracing/

Intel wrote the Embree raytracer: https://www.embree.org/

They have plenty of experience with raytracing.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Intel has been doing raytracing demos since the Larrabee in 2009: https://techreport.com/news/17641/intel-shows-larrabee-doing-real-time-ray-tracing/

Intel wrote the Embree raytracer: https://www.embree.org/

They have plenty of experience with raytracing.

Good points but they have yet to show off a hardware based raytracer. Larrabee is so long ago in the past that maybe it doesn't matter?

 

[Glo.]

This is just my OPINION:

128 EU DG2 with 6 GB VRAM, in desktop Thermal Envelopes will perform around GTX 1660 in rasterization, while offering Turing, or better Ray Tracing capabilities...

... in games that will have "Game Ready" drivers.*

Everywhere else - it will be a mess.

Overall, 128 EU DG2 on desktop should be 15-25% faster in games in rasterization than 6500 XT.

Hardware capabilities are in the sillicon to push it to this level of performance.

Next, equally interesting die is SOC3: 2048 ALUs, and potentially 192 bit bus.

* If you play in recent games like: Overwatch, Apex, CS:GO, DOTA2, LoL, Destiny 2, etc - you should be fine even on release of the GPUs.