Intel Shows Off AAA Gaming Capabilities of Intel Arc "Alchemist" GPU

[Anvirol]

Impressive 30 fps video and I even saw some stuttering.
Perhaps it's indicative of expected performance level.. If they captured at 60 fps then e.g. DigitalFoundry could've done frame counts.

 

[Chrispy_]

I wouldn't call it glacial. UHD 630 was a huge step forward and so is Xe. Those integrated graphics are becoming faster at incredible rate. I don't think that Radeons are improving as fast in non-IGPs.

I'm calling the dGPU desktop product launch glacial, not intel's CPU team. Intel IGPs have moved forwards at a great pace in the last decade from "embarassing wastes of silicon space" to "competitive"

In saying that, Radeon IGPs have basically been abandoned for the last four years. AMD has other priorities and the IGPs in consumer CPUs are afterthoughts at best right now.

 

[The red spirit]

I'm calling the dGPU desktop product launch glacial, not intel's CPU team. Intel IGPs have moved forwards at a great pace in the last decade from "embarassing wastes of silicon space" to "competitive"

Guess who designs IGPs for CPU team.

In saying that, Radeon IGPs have basically been abandoned for the last four years. AMD has other priorities and the IGPs in consumer CPUs are afterthoughts at best right now.

Afterthoughts or not, but they are leaders at that. Some people think that at budget they make a lot of sense and are good deals.

 

[Chrispy_]

Guess who designs IGPs for CPU team.

Probably coincidence and/or other factors at play, but it's amusing that Intel's IGPs started rapid improvements and AMD's IGPs stagnated shortly after Raja's defection to Intel.

 

[The red spirit]

Probably coincidence and/or other factors at play, but it's amusing that Intel's IGPs started rapid improvements and AMD's IGPs stagnated shortly after Raja's defection to Intel.

I disagree. Raja is something that people talk about, but he's just a tiny dot. Intel graphics have been improving a lot pretty much since Haswell. Ever since Iris was launched, Intel has made something faster and more interesting. At first in only select chips, but since they rolled out HD 500 series, it started to be for masses. And since UHD series, Intel has been noticeably more serious about that.

Just check out Intel Iris Pro 5200. It came with i7 4770R, i5 4670R, i5 4570R and some others chips. As far as I know they were put into Gigabyte Brix mini computers. Here is one of the weakest variation of it running Skyrim at 1080p medium-high settings:

That looks very solid to me. Then Intel launched Iris Pro 6200 on mainstream Broadwell chips. Here is one in action, it runs Titanfall at 1080p, low-high

Unfortunately there is no fps counter, but to me it looks like it reaches 30-50 fps. Not great, but totally serviceable and decently enjoyable. Intel also made Iris Pro P6300, but those were super rare and only came with Xeons, so they had no significance for consumers. Then after Gen 8, Intel launched Gen 9. With 2016's flagships being Iris Pro 580. Here is one in action running bunch of popular games:

Not bad, next year Intel updated their IGP line up and flagship was Iris Plus 650, for desktop famous UHD 630, and the last flagship was Iris Plus 655. All were not as fast as Iris Pro 580, but UHD 630 came with almost every desktop Intel coffee lake and kaby lake chips, so it was very popular and it wasn't gutless either. UHD 630 was midspec Gen 9 chip, it came with 24 GT2 EUs, meanwhile Iris Pro 580 came with 72 GT4 EUs. So here is one in action:

Despite massive cut down of GPU resources, UHD 630 was still somewhat passable iGPU. Raja Koduri only came to Intel before Coffee Lake's launch, so he didn't do much to all these iGPUs. Afterwards, Intel started to put more EUs. Intel Xe got 96 EUs, which were also clocked higher. Meanwhile desktops only got cut down UHD 750 with only 32 EUs. That's still more than in previous gen, but desktop got gimped bad again. It makes sense, on desktop IGP is just display adapter, meanwhile on laptop IGP may be all what fits as gaming or professional GPU, also laptops CPU dies may be smaller, so it's only natural that laptops are getting Xe graphics and desktops get gimped UHD 750. Anyway, here's Xe in action:

Pretty good for IGP, there was not a single unplayable game. But here's one thing. Xe when it was launched plays AAA games at 720p low at 40 fps, meanwhile some Iris GPUs when they were launched achieved same performance, but at 1080p and low-high settings. relatively Iris IGPs were a lot better. Now they are obviously weak and incapable of anything interesting, but after launch they were more impressive than Xe is now. So it seems that either new games got terribly more demanding or Xe isn't a good launch as Iris Pro was.

 

[Patriot]

No, they solved the problem holding them back with 14nm. 7nm will be a good step forward from 10nm.

Intel Rebadges 10nm Enhanced SuperFin Node as "Intel 7," Invents Other Creative Node Names

Intel, in a move comparable to its competitors' Performance Rating system from the 1990s, has invented a new naming scheme for its in-house foundry nodes to claim technological parity with contemporaries such as TSMC and Samsung, that are well into the sub-10 nm class. Back in the i586 era, when...

www.techpowerup.com

 

[Steevo]

I disagree. Raja is something that people talk about, but he's just a tiny dot. Intel graphics have been improving a lot pretty much since Haswell. Ever since Iris was launched, Intel has made something faster and more interesting. At first in only select chips, but since they rolled out HD 500 series, it started to be for masses. And since UHD series, Intel has been noticeably more serious about that.

Just check out Intel Iris Pro 5200. It came with i7 4770R, i5 4670R, i5 4570R and some others chips. As far as I know they were put into Gigabyte Brix mini computers. Here is one of the weakest variation of it running Skyrim at 1080p medium-high settings:

That looks very solid to me. Then Intel launched Iris Pro 6200 on mainstream Broadwell chips. Here is one in action, it runs Titanfall at 1080p, low-high

Unfortunately there is no fps counter, but to me it looks like it reaches 30-50 fps. Not great, but totally serviceable and decently enjoyable. Intel also made Iris Pro P6300, but those were super rare and only came with Xeons, so they had no significance for consumers. Then after Gen 8, Intel launched Gen 9. With 2016's flagships being Iris Pro 580. Here is one in action running bunch of popular games:

Not bad, next year Intel updated their IGP line up and flagship was Iris Plus 650, for desktop famous UHD 630, and the last flagship was Iris Plus 655. All were not as fast as Iris Pro 580, but UHD 630 came with almost every desktop Intel coffee lake and kaby lake chips, so it was very popular and it wasn't gutless either. UHD 630 was midspec Gen 9 chip, it came with 24 GT2 EUs, meanwhile Iris Pro 580 came with 72 GT4 EUs. So here is one in action:

Despite massive cut down of GPU resources, UHD 630 was still somewhat passable iGPU. Raja Koduri only came to Intel before Coffee Lake's launch, so he didn't do much to all these iGPUs. Afterwards, Intel started to put more EUs. Intel Xe got 96 EUs, which were also clocked higher. Meanwhile desktops only got cut down UHD 750 with only 32 EUs. That's still more than in previous gen, but desktop got gimped bad again. It makes sense, on desktop IGP is just display adapter, meanwhile on laptop IGP may be all what fits as gaming or professional GPU, also laptops CPU dies may be smaller, so it's only natural that laptops are getting Xe graphics and desktops get gimped UHD 750. Anyway, here's Xe in action:

Pretty good for IGP, there was not a single unplayable game. But here's one thing. Xe when it was launched plays AAA games at 720p low at 40 fps, meanwhile some Iris GPUs when they were launched achieved same performance, but at 1080p and low-high settings. relatively Iris IGPs were a lot better. Now they are obviously weak and incapable of anything interesting, but after launch they were more impressive than Xe is now. So it seems that either new games got terribly more demanding or Xe isn't a good launch as Iris Pro was.

Redirect Notice

Except the 5700G wipes the floor with Intel offerings at the same price point in every metric measured.

Even on older Vega GPU tech.

 

[The red spirit]

Redirect Notice

Except the 5700G wipes the floor with Intel offerings at the same price point in every metric measured.

Even on older Vega GPU tech.

I was posting about progress that Intel made, not whether AMD is competitive or not. Of course Vega is faster. But if Intel continues to improve as much as it does now, Vega will be beaten soon.

 

[Steevo]

I was posting about progress that Intel made, not whether AMD is competitive or not. Of course Vega is faster. But if Intel continues to improve as much as it does now, Vega will be beaten soon.

So soon a non existent product will theoretically be able to beat a series old existing product and we should do what as consumers….. Sing praises of love for a company that has engaged in anticompetitive practices for years if not decades?

Remind me to be excited when they have a product, it’s competitive, it’s pricing is competitive, it doesn’t have the bugs, and it’s actually available. Until then it’s all smoke and mirrors.

 

[Chrispy_]

I was posting about progress that Intel made, not whether AMD is competitive or not. Of course Vega is faster. But if Intel continues to improve as much as it does now, Vega will be beaten soon.

Vega will be beaten next year by Rembrandt which brings RDNA2+ and DDR5. Intel may still have nothing to show by then. They're great at talking about their graphics products but so far they're basically on a 4-year vaporware tease. Star Citizen has nothing on Intel!

As for the Iris graphics, those weren't mainstream, limited to Apple, niche embedded parts in NUCs and the like, and generally unavailable to consumers as processors in the retail channel. Having owned one I can say for certain that during the active product lifespan the drivers were atrocious with too many games unplayable for months after launch due to driver issues that took Intel unacceptably long to rectify.

There's no denying that Intel graphics have made vast strides over the years, but looking back at what I couldn't play on my HD2000, HD3000, HD4000, HD4600, Iris 6100, HD620, HD630, and Xe (80EU 1135G7) Intel are still playing catchup, both in raw performance and also drivers that just work. HD630 is probably the first time I could assume a game was supported correctly by the driver and Xe is genuinely impressive (despite getting schooled by my 4700U).

 

[The red spirit]

So soon a non existent product will theoretically be able to beat a series old existing product and we should do what as consumers…..

Intel has been into graphics for a long time and they certainly made existing products.

Sing praises of love for a company that has engaged in anticompetitive practices for years if not decades?

That's your best argument? Literally every semiconductor company did shady shit like that, there no saints. Now go back under your rock, you need it.

Remind me to be excited when they have a product, it’s competitive, it’s pricing is competitive, it doesn’t have the bugs, and it’s actually available. Until then it’s all smoke and mirrors.

I'm not sure how this is related to what I posted earlier.

Vega will be beaten next year by Rembrandt which brings RDNA2+ and DDR5. Intel may still have nothing to show by then. They're great at talking about their graphics products but so far they're basically on a 4-year vaporware tease. Star Citizen has nothing on Intel!

That they don't release anything discrete, doesn't mean that they don't release anything integrated. And I'm basing my only argument on how much I saw Intel getting better and better at gaming, actually surprisingly fast. I haven't seen such consistent improvements with say AMD, who are stuck on same major architecture for nearly decades. Remember GCN? AMD has been on it for 5 years. All way since HD 7000 series until Radeon VII. Meanwhile Intel does a major architecture updates for almost every generation of CPUs. It seems that Intel progresses a lot faster.

As for the Iris graphics, those weren't mainstream, limited to Apple, niche embedded parts in NUCs and the like, and generally unavailable to consumers as processors in the retail channel. Having owned one I can say for certain that during the active product lifespan the drivers were atrocious with too many games unplayable for months after launch due to driver issues that took Intel unacceptably long to rectify.

Oh well, that sucks. But sometimes they were available for basic things. During Broadwell era, Iris was on mainstream Intel chips.

There's no denying that Intel graphics have made vast strides over the years, but looking back at what I couldn't play on my HD2000, HD3000, HD4000, HD4600, Iris 6100, HD620, HD630, and Xe (80EU 1135G7) Intel are still playing catchup, both in raw performance and also drivers that just work. HD630 is probably the first time I could assume a game was supported correctly by the driver and Xe is genuinely impressive (despite getting schooled by my 4700U).

Oh that's true, I personally wouldn't want to use any of their graphics, but if I had to, it feels less and less like a genuine suffering over time. And if progress continues, those graphics may be a viable low spec gaming alternative. Some people that I know, who had for a long time a very old computers were genuinely surprised by how good Intel IGPs have gotten and for them, they are totally respectable. They play older titles, but even something like 1080p medium is acceptable to them. I remember one person, who decided not to get dedicated graphics at all, once he found out that UHD 630 on i9 9700K was actually good enough (and more than good enough) for his needs. That certainly couldn't have happened with atrocious HD 2000 for example. Those were really slow, even in ancient games. So slow than even ancient ATi onboard (not on CPU) graphics sometimes beat them.

It seems that Intel isn't all that much behind Vega. Considering that Intel UHD 750 has twice less cores than Vega 8, it may mean that each core is faster than each Vega core. I think it might be a question of company politics rather than technological prowess at this point. If Intel put more GPU cores with CPUs they likely could match or beat Vega 8 already. Not only that, but maybe even take on Vega 11. But I don't know how much space those graphics take up and it's clear that Intel is very conservative with IGPs on desktop parts. Or maybe they noticed that Vegas are bandwidth starved and just made iGPUs just so good that they aren't as bandwidth starved. That may give them some power efficiency and save die space.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Come on folks, let's lose the personal jabs.

Vega will be beaten next year by Rembrandt which brings RDNA2+ and DDR5.

If Intel delivers the goods, this will be a thing. My personal opinion is that they are likely to get close if not on the mark they're aiming for which is excellent news for the whole industry.