Intel Battlemage Arc GPUs Come In Two Variants: Xe2-HPG For Discrete & Xe2-LPG For Integrated, Raja Koduri Says “Making The Next Generation Will Be Much More Easier”
Intel Battlemage Arc GPUs Come In Two Variants: Xe2-HPG For Discrete & Xe2-LPG For Integrated, Raja Koduri Says “Making The Next Generation Will Be Much More Easier”
Besides the two major updates to its Arc family, Intel also gave an update on the progress of its next-gen Xe2 GPUs codenamed Battlemage.
During a conversation with Hardwareluxx's editor, Andreas Schilling, Intel's Tom Peterson stated that the GPU division had a lot to learn from the first generation Arc GPU codenamed Alchemist. The first generation had a Xe architecture that scaled across the data center, discrete gaming, & integrated graphics solutions. Each sub-segment needs to be optimized according to the platform they are being aimed at and that's a complicated process.
With Intel's upcoming Xe2 architecture, a similar methodology is being applied with two different chip designs, the Xe2-HPG for discrete graphics and the Xe2-LPG for integrated solutions. But the company states that during its 2nd generation, Intel will have less trouble as they did with the 1st gen Alchemist GPUs and they are further planning to streamline down the path when Celestial or Xe3 GPUs hit shelves.
"I wish we had one design, like let's call it Xe 1 and all we had done is sprinkle that around unmodified. That is a winning strategy. What we have actually done unfortunately and we are Improving on this on future generations, we've done targeted micro architectures per vertical segment.So we have an architecture for high end datacenter, we have a slightly different architecture for desktop discrete and today we have a slightly different architecture for integrated.Now As we go forward in our roadmap, we realized this is a very, very expensive – the QA process and the segmantation.The thinking was we needed to differentiate our IP and customize it per each segment.
T think in hindsight we would have been better off have we rigorously said "you know what, we're gonna give up something", like give up some differentiation in the high end or we are going to have some overhead in the low end. We're gonna just have one thing and it goes everywhere unmodified. Thats more the strategy we are looking at going forward. And thats because, thats really the only way to get IP reused to really work.
There is a Xe and there is a Xe 2 and in that Xe 2 generation there is a Xe-LPG and there is a HPG (…) and there a slight variations (…) which is our big learning. The idea was we needed to optimize for each segment and build separate chips and do separate verifications. And I think now the real learning is we would be better off concentrating our focus and really thinking of it like a really solidly, hard IP business.
But it's a tough thing, because if you know that your are going into the data center, you know that you are going desktop discrete and you know you are going be integrated – they all have slightly different ways to optimize. And that's what we've done a much much better job going forward. We are learning to refrain from overly customizing IP because that proliferates QA and verification and really bloats the work to be done."
via HardwareLuxx
Furthermore, during a recent interview with Raja Koduri, the chief architect of Intel's GPU division confirmed that there were certain obstacles when making their first generation Arc GPUs and that those are launched now so making the next generation GPUs, aka Xe2 Battlemage and Xe3 Celestial, will be much easier.
Raja also focuses on getting more out of the existing Alchemist lineup with optimized drivers, and more cards at different (affordable) price points over the next 12 months. So it looks like we will see more Arc Alchemist action before we get Arc Battlemage GPUs which are likely going to ship in 2024.
Imagine that you want to make a new car, it itself is very challenging, but imagine there were no roads to drive on so you also had to build roads and cars at the same time so that's the difficulty of Intel making GPU. So that's what we went through.
But now we have the road, we have the first generation cards, beautiful looking one that you see there, so making the next-generation would be much more easier.
A lot of plans, not just where we are going to take Arc, first getting more Arc to you, get more of you to experience Arc, get it more form factors, get it more versions of Arc that are even more affordable to you over the next 12 months, so a lot!
via Intel India
Raja Koduri has already previously confirmed that the work on Battlemage GPUs is ongoing on both the hardware and software sides. It was clearly mentioned that some of the software side moved to Battlemage but the majority will still be optimizing existing Arc Alchemist GPUs.
The bulk of the silicon team is working on Battlemage and platform engineering and some amount of the software resources have also been [...]
We are in the second generation. For the first generation, there wasn't a good reference point for you to compare so now that you have a reference point, we do have comparisons.
Like we track the number of open bugs and when we start a project, we set some performance goals and we do pre-silicon verification.
So when we look at all of those vectors, it's (Battlemage) substantially better at this point in time than where Alchemist was around.
Raja Koduri, Intel
Intel's Arc GPUs are slowly but surely getting back into the game. The updates that we saw today show that the blue team is committed to improving its GPU ecosystem for the client segment and we can expect even better updates in the coming months.
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