The Intel Xe-LP GPU architecture deep dive: building up the next generation

As part of today's Intel Architecture Day, Intel is devoting a good bit of its time to talking about the company's GPU architecture plans. Though not a shy spot for Intel, per-se, the company is still best known for its CPU cores, and the amount of marketing attention they've put into the graphics side of their business has always been a bit weaker as a result. But, like so many other things at Intel, times are changing - not only is Intel devoting ever more die real estate to GPUs, but over the next two years they are transitioning into a true third player in the PC GPU space, launching their first new discrete GPU in several generations.

As part of Intel's previously-announced Xe GPU architecture, the company intends to become a top-to-bottom GPU provider. This means offering discrete and integrated GPUs for everything from datacenters and HPC clusters to high-end gaming machines and laptops. This is a massive expansion for a company whom for the last decade has only been offering integrated GPUs, and one that has required a lot of engineering to get here. But, at long last, after a couple of years of talking up Xe and laying out their vision, Xe is about to become a reality for Intel's customers.

While we'll focus on different Xe-related announcements in separate articles - with this one focusing on Xe-LP - let's quickly recap the state of Intel's Xe plans, what's new as of today, and where Xe-LP fits into the bigger picture.

AnandTech dives into the first pillar of Intel's GPU plans - integrated graphics and entry-level dedicated GPUs. The other two pillars - high-end enthusiast use/datacenter, and HPC - will be covered in other AnandTech articles.