We’ve been hearing about Intel’s Xe gaming-focused graphics card for a while, but fresh information from Reuters stokes the flames once again, with the chip reportedly being manufactured on TSMC’s 7nm process. Said to be going up against AMD and Nvidia cards in the $400-$600 price range, could this be one of the best graphics cards available when it releases? Nvidia and AMD are undoubtedly waiting with bated breath.
The graphics chip, codenamed DG2, will have support for ray tracing and is likely togo up against cards like Nvidia’s RTX 3070 and AMD’s RX 6800 at this price point. The same report states that the 7nm process for the DG2 would be more advanced than the 7nm process used on AMD’s Big Navi chips and Nvidia’s 8nm Samsung-derived Ampere chips, so these should give team green and red a pretty big run for their money.
Intel’s DG2 graphics card is rumoured to release later this year or at some point during 2022. If its new GPU is a success, then in the future you’ll be looking at a triopoly instead of the current duopoly, choosing between three GPU manufacturers when it comes to your next gaming PC build.
A third player in the field is great news for all PC hardware consumers – more competition will lead to further pushes for improvements, and even more powerful GPUs in the future.
It’ll be interesting to see how many graphics card variations of the DG2 GPU Intel will release, when it comes to VRAM variations. Will you be looking to make a switch to an Intel graphics card in your future gaming PC build?