The Intel Core Ultra (Meteor Lake) line-up has not been totally unveiled but however right here at Intel Innovation 2023, we’ve got begun studying a number of new particulars in regards to the upcoming chips. In a session specializing in Xe graphics, we discovered about a number of the upgrades coming to Intel’s subsequent technology iGPU for cell chips, with improved efficiency per watt and the addition of ray-tracing accelerating {hardware} for the primary time.
When designing the brand new Xe iGPU for Meteor Lake, one of many principal targets was to enhance efficiency per watt, whereas making key spec enhancements to higher deal with gaming or inventive duties like rendering. This is achieved by rising the variety of vector engines, pixel backends and samplers by 1.33X. Additionally, the Meteor Lake iGPU will embody ray-tracing cores for the primary time, with as much as eight RT models, with the identical functionality because the RT models discovered on the discrete Intel Arc graphics playing cards. In an illustration, we obtained to see Shadow of the Tomb Raider working on an early pre-release pattern and whereas there was not a body counter, it did seem like holding an honest body price primarily based on the attention check.
The new iGPU utilises the TSMC N5 node, permitting for decrease minimal voltage to enhance effectivity. The node additionally allowed Intel’s graphics workforce to enhance the frequency curve, so larger clock speeds will be achieved with no leap in energy consumption. With the brand new design, L1 cache is now not shared with texture cache and the accessible cache needs to be used extra effectively too.
Compared to the iGPU present in Raptor Lake, Intel cites enhancements throughout the board, together with a 2.6X improve to vertex processing and triangle draw charges and a 2.3X enchancment in compute instruction price.
Moving ahead, Intel has a analysis workforce devoted to discovering methods to additional optimise and enhance ray-tracing and path-tracing efficiency throughout its stack. Work on this space is already being accomplished however the high-power stuff will probably be saved for discrete GPUs, so we’re trying ahead to seeing what Arc Battlemage can convey to the desk subsequent yr.
Intel’s AI powered upscaler, XeSS, is an enormous a part of the bundle right here. Recently, Intel shipped model 1.2 with a number of new enhancements, reminiscent of enabling the flexibility to pick out a goal body price after which have XeSS deal with the decision scaling behind the scenes to maintain efficiency as near the goal body price as potential.
While XeSS will be carried out pretty simply, Intel does provide an information extraction API that may permit builders to coach the AI for his or her recreation to scale back visible points. Intel additionally presents extra improvement help to companions for additional optimisation to enhance outcomes. One instance proven was Yakuza spin-off title, Like a Dragon: Ishin, with XeSS bringing a noticeable enchancment the soundness of the picture.
The Intel driver workforce is continuous to work to decrease API overhead and ship enhancements. While day-0 optimisations for brand new video games can usually rely upon the extent of entry Intel engineers have and the way early they’ll get that entry, Intel has been delivering on common round two graphics driver updates a month. Some of the larger driver releases have included over 100 new optimisations.
With the Intel Core Ultra chips set to debut later this yr, we’ll get to see simply how properly the brand new iGPU holds up in a matter of months. If Intel’s iGPU providing can proceed to enhance, it might be fascinating to see if the corporate dives into the burgeoning handheld gaming market with a competitor to one thing just like the Ryzen Z1.
KitGuru Says: The first Intel Core Ultra chips will probably be arriving in December so in only a few quick months, we’ll be capable of see them put to the check.
