Intel Provides Sneak Peek at Its Graphics Card (for Developers)

LAS VEGAS—Is this what Intel's dedicated graphics cards will look like?

We still don't know much about Intel's discrete "DG1" graphics cards, even as they're set to go on sale later this year. But at CES, the company showed off a special GPU model it's been handing out to developers so they can optimize their software and games for the upcoming technology.

The test model is a PCIe graphics card that runs on one fan, and can be slotted into a desktop PC. The company's goal is to sample the model throughout the year to independent software vendors (ISVs) across the world, including game developers and application makers.

"It's based on DG1 and already sampling to the ISVs," Ari Rauch, the company's general manager for its graphics division, said during a press briefing on Wednesday. "By the way, it's not a product. It's a software development vehicle."

The card runs on Intel's dedicated GPU architecture, called Xe, for which the company has big plans. The Xe architecture promises to power PC gaming, design software on work stations, AI-powered applications, and supercomputers in the same way Nvidia's dedicated graphics cards can do.

Intel plans on segmenting the Xe architecture into three groups: Xe HPC for the high-performance computing crowd, Xe HP for commercial machines, and then Xe LP for consumer devices, including laptops.

Aside from that, the company is remaining mum on the specs surrounding the DG1 test card. But Intel did demo the hardware running the first-person shooter Warframe, a popular PC game that first released back in 2013.

Intel refrained from showing us the frames-per-second during the gameplay. But to our eyes, the card was able to run the title fairly smoothly, although we did notice occasional stuttering and screen-tearing. Whether this was the fault of the card or due to software incompatibility issues remains an unanswered question. But at this point, it's perhaps impossible to judge the test card's performance since we don't know the GPU's specs or how powerful it should be.

That said, Intel wants the test card to showcase the company's graphics capabilities to developers. "We are very happy with where we are," Rauch said. "This is a very early development platform." He added that Intel remains on track with its existing 2020 plans to launch a dedicated graphics card. But whether the eventual product will first come to consumers or business users remain unclear.

Razer's Tomahawk Gaming PC, Intel's Latest NUC 9 Mini-Desktop in Killer Garb