Intel’s DG1 GPU Coming to Discrete Desktop Cards Next Year; OEM-Only
by Ryan Smith on October 31, 2020 12:01 PM EST
Alongside today’s launch of Intel’s DG1-based Iris Xe MAX graphics for laptops, the company is also quietly confirming that DG1 will be coming to desktop video cards as well, albeit in a roundabout way.
Though still in the early stages, a hereto unnamed third party has reached an agreement with Intel to produce DG1-based desktop cards. These cards, in turn, will be going into OEM desktop systems, and they are expected to appear early next year.
The very brief statement from Intel doesn’t contain any other details. The company isn’t saying anything about the specifications of the OEM desktop cards (e.g. clockspeeds), nor are they naming the third party that will be making the cards, or any OEMs who might be using the cards. For today at least, this is a simple notification that there will be OEM cards next year.
As for the market for such cards, there are a couple of avenues. OEMs could decide to treat the cards similarly to how Iris Xe MAX is being positioned in laptops, which is to say as a cheap add-in accelerator for certain GPU-powered tasks. Intel has baked a significant amount of video encode performance into the Xe-LP architecture, so the cards could be positioned as video encode accelerators. This would be very similar to Intel’s own plans, as the company will be selling a DG1-based video encode card for servers called the SG1.
Alternatively, the third party may just be looking to sell the DG1 card to OEMs as simple entry-level discrete graphics cards. Based on what we know about Xe MAX for laptops, DG1 is not expected to be significantly more powerful than Tiger Lake integrated graphics. However, as pointed out by our own Dr. Ian Cutress, it should be a good bit better than any comtemporary Atom’s integrated GPU.
Sadly, the OEM card probably won't be as fancy as Intel's DG1 development card
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Ej24 - Sunday, November 1, 2020 - link
Get a cheap entry level Quadro (p620) or Radeon Pro. (Wx 3100). Most have at least 4 dp output. Are tiny, single slot, 45W tdp. Used on ebay for $100Spunjji - Monday, November 2, 2020 - link
The performance on this one will be broadly equivalent to the desktop 1030, and some way short of the 1650.You're also right to be wary of Intel's iGPU running multiple high-res screens. It just doesn't cope well.
Alistair - Saturday, October 31, 2020 - link
That is some real confidence! Only in OEM's where they can pay people to put it in, not even for sale to DIYs. What a fail.shabby - Sunday, November 1, 2020 - link
Yup we'll be seeing these in $500 acer gaming desktops 🤭Alistair - Sunday, November 1, 2020 - link
You can buy an 11th gen Tiger Lake laptop with the GPU integrated and it performs about the same for $750 right now, but if you want the discrete Max graphics with the GPU integrated and almost zero extra performance, pay $1500. Just crazy. This product is DOA.dotes12 - Tuesday, November 3, 2020 - link
I've been disappointed with the OEMs, because it's obvious that they intentionally cut costs in a way that makes it difficult to upgrade your system. It used to only be giving you 2 RAM slots instead of 4, but now it's creating unique PSU form factors to prevent you from replacing it with an ATX/STX PSU, and even making the motherboard backplate integrated into the chassis so you can't take the motherboard and put it into a new chassis without it looking dumb. They also dropped the 24 pin ATX motherboard standard as well. All these things add up to making it almost impossible to add a graphics card to most OEM systems that requires more than the 75W PCIe can supply. I remember the first OEM system I got didn't even have a slot for adding a graphics card, they literally just didn't solder the PCIe (or maybe AGP?) connector to the board!Soulkeeper - Saturday, October 31, 2020 - link
I'm actually really interested in this.Even if the performance is poor compared to AMD/Nvidia.
Intel is still a gorilla in the room when it comes to driver/software support for their products.
The linux support will be top notch, these would be great for linux users imo.
vladx - Saturday, October 31, 2020 - link
Well said, driver quality and support from Intel is stellar, even beats NVidia in terms of reliability.KompuKare - Sunday, November 1, 2020 - link
This keeps being repeated all the time. And it may be true for certain things.For graphics, Intel drivers are stable - just don't expect updates to cope with new games!
However, for WiFi cards - despite Intel's great reputation for NICs - their drivers aren't always that great.
Have Thinkpad T540p which came with the Intel N 7260 card. After Windows 10 came out, there was one driver which didn't work very well. Thinkpad forums said that Intel weren't going to do any more Win10 drivers for that card (it predated Win10 by about a year but was still on sale at the time AFAIR). So I 'downgraded' the Realtech RTL8192 based card: Win10 drivers were stable from the go and I've never looked back.
I noticed that Intel eventually relented as Lenovo now have more recent drivers for that card, but can't be bothered to swap back.
Spunjji - Monday, November 2, 2020 - link
vladx is a shill, nuance isn't their thing 🤷♂️