Intel has started sharing details about its Xe lineup. We know that the Workstation and Exascale GPUs will be called Ponte Vecchio and will feature a slew of new technologies. We’re looking at an MCM design, Rambo Cache (essentially a fat interconnect cache), HBM memory and Foveros packaging technology. However, most of these will be limited to the Exascale and Data Center space. For the consumer space, we’ll have to make do with simpler products. Courtesy of the Eurasian Economic Council (ECC), we have spotted an Intel dedicated graphics card packing 16GB of VRAM (possibly HBM 2) in the wild.
This is most likely a professional GPU with 16GB stacked HBM memory (8GB per slab). The Alpha label means that it’s still in the early stages of testing. The 6 + 2 might mean it’s a whole system consisting of two Sapphire Rapids CPUs and six Ponte Vecchio GPUs, both based on the 7nm node. If that’s really the case, then we’re still more than a year away from launch. However, keep in mind that this is sheer speculation at this point. Project Aurora powered by Intel’s Ponte Vecchio graphics architecture is slated for launch in 2021, so there’s a lot of waiting left to do.
As for Tiger Lake, we’re seeing mentions of several quad-core low power Y parts. Tiger Lake will be based on the 10nm+ node and is said to succeed Icelake in 2021.
Lastly, there’s Lakefield also supposedly based on the 10nm node. It will be Intel’s first “Hybrid” CPU featuring one high-performance Sunny Cove core and four low-power Tremont cores. Paired with the Gen11 iGPU, it will be the first chip to leverage Intel’s 3D Packaging “Foveros” technology. Lakefield is expected to launch at CES 2020 and will feature many flagship Athena notebooks.
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