Intel’s First Commercial DG1 3GB Graphics Card Spotted: Faster Than A PS4 And (Minimum Spec) VR Capable

Intel's first commercial graphics card: the DG1, has just had a SisoftSandra run leaked. The run hints at not only the core count but also the clock speed. With that, we can even determine a rough estimate of the single compute performance. Equipped with 768 cores and a 1.5 GHz clock rate (which is likely going to increase before launch), could the Intel DG1 GPU be the cheap but modern add-in card that gamers have been waiting for? Oh and for the first time, the vRAM has been spotted as well, looks like the DG1 will be rocking 3GB worth of vRAM.

Intel DG1 GPU Sisoft Sandra benchmark leaked: 2.3 TFLOPs, 768 Cores, 1.5 GHz and 3GB vRAM

There is a lot of uncertainty regarding Intel's GPU ambitions right now. The only thing we know for sure is that they are targeting the enterprise market. Their plans for gamers remain unclear at this point and while DG1 would be a godsend for gamers (Intel can certainly use some of its "financial horsepower" to subsidize the DG1 and attract a starting market share) everything so far points to no such plans. A cheap add-in card that has a modern display engine and enough gaming juice to beat out a PS4 and supports the VR minimum spec (1.9 TFLOPs) would have been a great deal for budget gamers.

The Sisoft run references the client platform cannon lake. The DG1 dGPU will be identical to the TigerLake iGPU in all regards (with the major exception of the allowed TDP of course) and TGL is shaping up to be a real killer. Intel's TigerLake also has been confirmed to arrive to the consumer market and considering it will be delivered in a mobile form factor will offer a much higher punch in terms of performance density. It will also be the first "serious" iGPU for laptops allowing users to forego traditional entry-level dGPUs such as NVIDIA's MX series.

Recap: Intel Xe DG1 GPU preview

Intel has also confirmed (again) that the Xe DG1 GPU is part of the low power (LP) series and is not the product that gamers will get – which will be part of the high power (HP) series. The entire purpose of DG1 is to serve as a sort of training wheels for the rest of the ecosystem to prepare for the arrival of Intel’s serious products later down the line. Here are some additional looks and renders:

Intel’s demo of the Xe DG1 was running in an external housing and you could only play one game on it right now: Warframe. The GPU was connected to a 1080p TV and while you can read more about our hands-on experience below, the general consensus is that performance was very satisfactory. The Intel Xe DG1 GPU features 3 DisplayPorts and 1 HDMI port. It also does not require a secondary power connector and draws all its power from the PCIe grid. This is essentially a plug and play affair if Intel ever decides to go retail with the DG1.

The graphics card is meant to be a platform for AIBs and ISVs to independently test and optimize-for the Xe architecture. Considering this is a prototype, we were expecting the card to be somewhat glitch but as you will read later in our hands-on, the Intel Xe DG1 software development vehicle performed exceptionally well. On a side note, the company also revealed that Integer Scaling will be coming to Tiger Lake and by extension the DG1.