Intel Ends Kaby Lake-G Chips, Which Had AMD Radeon GPUs

An Intel effort to pair its processors with integrated graphics from AMD is coming to an end.

On Tuesday, Intel quietly issued a product notice, saying it was discontinuing Kaby Lake-G processors, which were born from a rare team-up between the chip maker and rival AMD.

Back in November 2017, Intel announced it was creating a special line of chips for PC gaming hardware that would pack an Intel Core H-series processor with a "Vega M" GPU chip from AMD's Radeon group, which is best known for creating dedicated graphics cards.

Although the partnership took the chip industry by surprise, the resulting Kaby Lake-G processors were powerful, offering Core i7 performance and some impressive AMD-backed graphic capabilities on a single chip. In 2018, Intel began introducing the Kaby Lake-G processors into PC models such as the Dell XPS 15 2-in-1 convertible laptop and Intel's own "Next Unit of Computing (NUC)" line of mini-PC desktops. However, the processors did not gain widespread adoption among device makers.

Intel indicated to PCMag that it's phasing out the Kaby Lake-G line in favor of its newly released 10th generation Intel Core processors, which are dubbed Ice Lake. The processors boast their own impressive GPU capabilities, this time designed by Intel itself.

"Intel is refocusing its product portfolio. Our 10th Gen Intel Core processors with Iris Plus graphics are built on the new Gen11 graphics architecture that nearly doubled graphics performance," the company said in an email. "We have more in store from our graphics engine that will bring further enhancements to PCs in the future."

The company's rivalry with AMD has also been heating up; the new Ryzen and Threadripper processors from AMD have proven to be competitive alternatives to Intel's desktop and laptop chip lines.

At the same time, Intel is preparing to enter the dedicated graphics card market in 2020, putting it in direct competition with AMD's Radeon business.

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Tuesday's notice from Intel adds that market demand for the Kaby Lake-G chips has shifted to other company products. On July 31, 2020, it will officially end all shipments for the chips.

Editor's Note: This story has been updated with comment from Intel.

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