GET READY FOR SOME DECENT GRAPHICS
Over one teraflop of pure compute performance, support for ultrahigh resolution HEVC encode and decode, improved display pipelines, an enhanced rasteriser, variable rate shading, over double the performance in 3D rendering, and support for adaptive sync. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the elevator pitch for Intel’s new Gen11 graphics technology, as seen in the new 10nm Ice Lake mobile CPUs.
In terms of actual in-game frame rates, Intel reckons that the fastest Gen11 integrated graphics core is typically around 80 percent faster than the Gen9.5 graphics found in eighthgeneration processors, and sometimes over 100 percent faster. Much of that improvement is down to increased complexity. Gen11 graphics tops out at 64 execution units to the maximum
48 of its Gen9.5 progenitor. However, the 48-execution-unit iteration of Gen9.5 was limited to a small number of SKUs, whereas the 64-unit Gen11 graphics is found in nearly half of the currently available Ice Lake processors, including ultra-low power versions.
3D performance aside, Gen11 brings some other very nice enhancements. It supports two HEVC 10-bit video encode pipelines in parallel, and in terms of display output, Gen11 can drive three 4K screens at the same time – two via DisplayPort 1.4 HBR3, and another courtesy of HDMI 2.0b. Alternatively, it can drive dual 5K displays or a single 4K display at 120Hz. Nice. Very nice.
But what is the relationship between Gen11 and Intel’s new discrete graphics chips, due next year and known as Intel Xe? Officially, we don’t know. But our expectation is that Xe will be based on the same building blocks as Gen11, but with some additional enhancements, including hardware support for ray tracing. For those discrete cards, the indications are that initial SKUs will include GPUs with 128, 256, and 512 execution units. Given that Gen11 with 64 units is broadly good for 1080p gaming at 30fps and decent detail levels, the higher-end Xe chips, with nigh on 10 times the complexity, make for an interesting proposition.