Despite the amount of details that Intel has already advanced about its Alder Lake architecture, there is one that they have not yet told us about and that is the exact architecture of the GPU integrated into the processor. Which we assume may be the same as what we have already seen in the eleventh generation of both desktop, Rocket Lake-S, and notebooks, Tiger Lake.
The reason for this is that the EU number setting of the leaked slides, especially in the Alder Lake laptop version, matched those of the previous generation and since we know that it will take time for Intel to implement Intel architecture ARC, formerly known as DG2, so the bottom line is that Intel’s Gen 12 would use a GPU based on DG1 or Intel Xe-LP.
These are the iGPUs of the Alder Lake range in laptops
Through a screenshot taken from the Coreboot application we have been able to know the integrated graphics that Intel has integrated into its Alder Lake for laptops and we find quite juicy information.
- In the case of Alder Lake-P, which includes laptop processors ranging from 15 W to 45 W of consumption, its iGPU is the Intel GT2 and therefore the same as that of the current Tiger lake.
- The models Alder Lake-M, with consumptions of 5 to 9 W, they can have different settings integrated graphics. From GT1 coming from Ice Lake, and therefore from the tenth generation, to a new model called GT3.
What capabilities will Intel’s new integrated GPU have under the name GT3? We do not know, but since it is going to be part of the simplest range in terms of complexity and consumption, what occurs to us looking at the information we have is that it is a more efficient version of GT2, but without news at the architectural level. It would therefore be a revision of a previous design that has been optimized to reduce its consumption.
We still don’t know about the GPUs built into the desktop Gen 12
Although we can assume that Intel will recycle the same design as in Rocket Lake-S, we may be surprised that Intel has evolved its iGPU from one generation to the next. Although looking at the information we have so far and given the short time from one generation to another, we are very clear that Intel would have decided to re-integrate the same graphics processor as in Gen 11.
This is not something that has to be negative in itself, given that AMD for example has already several generations of its Ryzen APUs making use of its Vega architecture and it will not be until Rembrandt that we will see the change. In the case of Intel we expect it with Meteor Lake and therefore it is very likely that the integrated GPU of Raptor Lake will be the same again.
