Intel Xe Graphics Are Looking Great On Linux 5.11 With Nice Performance Uplift

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Intel Xe Graphics Are Looking Great On Linux 5.11 With Nice Performance Uplift

While Linux 5.11-rc1 was just released yesterday, we have already been closely monitoring the new features of Linux 5.11 as well as carrying out early benchmarks. One area looking quite good so far are the Intel graphics performance and features with Linux 5.11, or more specifically Gen9 and newer while the latest Xe Graphics are obviously the most interesting from a benchmarking perspective.

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=29805

[schmidtbag]

Results like that make me intrigued to wait for their desktop GPUs. Not like I have much of a choice anyway, considering availability from AMD and Nvidia.

[ms178]

2021 - the year Intel graphics could become relevant for (serious) gamers. I am curious how this will turn out or if we end up with three vendors with a high-price strategy.

[Hibbelharry]

2021 - the year Intel graphics could become relevant for (serious) gamers. I am curious how this will turn out or if we end up with three vendors with a high-price strategy.

I don't expect too much for 2021. The game is heating up for AMD and Nvidia, both are seriously advancing currently and won't stop. Both have years of experience in selling working high performance GPUs, while Intel doesn't. Intel is also still messing around with their manufacturing process, delaying each and every product. I don't think they'll be able to place big orders at TSMC, since Apple, AMD and others offer a different kind of perspective for TSMC. And: their prior tries building a high performance GPU really sucked big time. I expect intel to be able to build something vaguely competing in the entry to mid level, i expect them to fail in any other regard until they reach at least their second or third generation of their now bigger efforts.

[torsionbar28]

I don't expect they will have anything competitive in the consumer gaming market any time soon. Knowing Intel, my guess is they start with entry level workstation cards. Something that competes with AMD WX3200 and Nvidia P1000. They are relatively low performance, low TDP, but still return a far greater profit margin than similar spec gamer cards. If they can convince the OEM's to make the Intel Xe the default card in new workstations, they'll get significant volume right off the bat.

[Sonadow]

Is a VM still required to take advantage of the Xe Max dGPU under Linux?

If it is, then the Xe + Xe Max laptop solution is only going to be good on Windows.

[DooMMasteR]

Still, graphics drivers for Haswell and SkyLake are so bad that is really makes me hate Intel graphics :-(.
The issues are just too annoying to consider them good.

[darkbasic]

Is a VM still required to take advantage of the Xe Max dGPU under Linux?

If it is, then the Xe + Xe Max laptop solution is only going to be good on Windows.

What do you mean?

[Kano]

I think Intel has got a lots of projects running in parallel right now. Their former strengh with own fabs does not seem to exist anymore. Will be intersting if they outsource the external gfx chips to TSMC - as those tend to be really huge and they know what they do. I really want to see a 3rd competitor in the gaming market. AMD's strategy to split production from development was mainly born due to lack of money but looks right now a bit smarter - but this can change of course again in the future. What could also happen is that similar chips to the ones used by PS5/XBSX with GDDR memory could enter gaming laptops. I guess that AMD has got "exclusive" deals with Sony/MS but Intel most likely not. I would certainly experiment in that area.

[Archprogrammer]

Not really relevant, but I'm a bit amused by the "Xe Max" moniker - this sounds a lot like "XEmacs", which was widely regarded as somewhat slow about 25 years ago (I'm a Vim person myself).

I'm not sure anyone else remembers this, but I thought it was quite funny with Intel naming its latest graphics effort after something regarded as slow (even if it was quite some while ago).