GPUs

Intel DG1 Graphics Card Scores Low in GeekBench, ~30% Faster than Gen11 Graphics on Ice Lake

A while back there were murmurs that Intel’s Graphics Odyssey was going off-track with reports of less than impressive performance from the first wave of Xe graphics processors. The company was quick to quell these rumors, with a reveal of the first “software development vehicle” for developers and programmers at CES 2020. There have been some leaks here and there, and all seem to maintain that the 1st Gen Xe graphics cards will be mainly limited to Low Power mobile devices. A Geekbench score of the rumored DG1 graphics card (the first prototype Xe GPU) is rather dismal, to say the least. Have a look:

OpenCL Compute isn’t usually a good indicator of real-world performance but this is a relatively low score. The particle physics and depth of field scores are strong but the face detection and most other tests aren’t very promising.

Comparing it to the Gen11 graphics performance, you can see that the trends are mostly repeated. The weak and strong points of the two GPUs are the same.

Looking at this, I get the feeling that Intel might not launch the 1st Gen Xe graphics cards for consumers at all, and the Tiger Lake-based Gen 12 graphics (which is identical to this GPU) will be the only Intel Xe GPU we’ll see in 2020. Compared to Ice Lake (64 Execution Units), Tiger Lake will feature a beefed-up graphics processor with 96 EUs. The fact that DG1 sports the same shader count makes that possibility very likely.

Areej Syed

Processors, PC gaming, and the past. I have been writing about computer hardware for over seven years with more than 5000 published articles. Started off during engineering college and haven't stopped since. Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Divinity, Torment, Baldur's Gate and so much more... Contact: areejs12@hardwaretimes.com.
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