At present it seems that the low-end of graphics cards for gaming is located in the space of the recommended retail price of 300 euros, although the reality is that manufacturers are moving it to 400. And yes, we have not forgotten the ravages of mining on the graphics hardware market for gaming.
The reality is that there is an even lower range, where a bulk of gamers buy graphics cards at a much lower price and that both AMD and NVIDIA have left neglected. It is in this sector where Intel has seen a gap to place one of the versions of its Intel ARC Alchemist, formerly known as Intel Xe-HPG. The consequences of it? AMD and NVIDIA have got to work to launch versions of their RTX 30 and RX 6000 for the abandoned low-end. Well, we finally have the specs for the Intel DG2-128.
Intel DG2-128 Specifications
It is not news that Intel had two chips in development under its Xe-HPG or DG2 architecture, recently renamed ARC Alchemist, and of the largest and most powerful of the two we already knew its specifications, but of the model with lower specifications, the Intel DG-128, we had little information.
The leaked specs speak of 128 EU, we have to remember that Intel recently renamed these units as Vector Engines, and that 16 of them are grouped in what is called an Xe Core, so we have 8 units in total that would each be equivalent to a Compute Unit or an SM in the GPUs of AMD and NVIDIA respectively.
The graphics power? Well given that it is an entry GPU that will sell for less than $ 175 according to rumors we can not expect something that is top of the range. What is known is that it will perform better than the GTX 1650 SUPER, all in a TDP less than 75W, a clock speed between 2.2 and 2.5 GHz and configurations 4 GB for laptops, making use of a 64-bit bus and memory GDDR6 at 14 Gbps.
On desktop computers it will have a higher bandwidth as this is 96 bits, which will allow you to place 6 GB GDDR6 at 16 Gbps. These characteristics give it the shape of a mini-ITX card, and in part its design is reminiscent of the DG1s that Intel did not officially launch on the market, but that were distributed as a development platform.
Is it the Meteor Lake iGPU?
A few days ago, Intel announced that it is already manufacturing Meteor Lake, its future CPU composed of 3 different chips, which are, on the one hand, the Compute Tile that includes the CPU and the Northbridge, the SoC LP where the I / O interfaces are. and to finish the GPU Die. We learned that this processor will include parts from Intel and TSMC.
Well, both GPUs with ARC Alchemist architecture and therefore the DG-128 as well as the DG-512 will be manufactured by TSMC. This means that Meteor Lake’s onboard GPU could be the DG-128, which would make perfect sense in the world given that the DG2-128 by its specs appears to be designed to replace the current DG1 used under the Iris Xe Max brand in notebooks. .