Intel debuted their Xe Graphics as CES 2020, by powering Destiny 2 and Warframe on a laptop while on stage. The GPU struggled to reach the performance of dedicated cards, but preformed well for the limited power of a laptop. After this display Intel started sending out Xe as a software development vehicle (SDV) to many developers. All of the displays of Xe was a PCIe dedicated graphics, or the normal graphic card in gaming desktops. In presentation from Argonne National Laboratory, a slide revealed that Intel intends to sell only the die and not a dedicated card.
Intel plans on selling the die as a part of mobile GPUs, not as a dedicated card or as a Mobile PCI Express Module. Xe graphics are planned to be permanently tethered to Intel’s notebooks and their dedicated memory onto the laptop’s motherboard. So far dedicated Xe graphics are not planned to be released onto the consumer market. Intel appears to be angling its dedicated Xe GPUs for high end computing in datacenters.
So far, Xe graphics is on track to make its mid-2020 release date, although Intel has yet to release definite date. As of right now it appears that Intel Xe GPU will be hosting 768 shader cores across 96 execution units (EUs), 3GB memory, and 1MB of L2 cache, putting it to the low end of GPUs when compared to AMD’s or Nvidia’s products but it is an improvement for integrated GPUs.
Xe Graphics are planned to be split into three primary poduct lines Xe-LP, XE-HP, and XE-HPC. Intel revealed that XE-LP was going to be the integrated graphics for Tiger Lake CPUs, while HP was initially marketed as a dedicated card for consumers, entering the market against Nvidia and AMD. Intel has only displayed the Xe-LP to consumers with Destiny 2 and Warframe at CES 2020 and has not released any details for HP cards other than shipping SVDs to datacenter developers. XE-HPC was never meant for consumer markets and is designed for super computers.