Intel's making some seriously beefy GPUs too, just so you know

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Take a look at Intel Xe-HPC, a certified beefcake.

Intel Ponte Vecchio Xe-HPC GPU
(Image credit: Intel)

I know we go on about Nvidia this and AMD that a lot when it comes to GPUs, and rightly so, but today marks the day that Intel has something to whet gamer's appetites. It's not a gaming GPU, I'll admit, but damn if it isn't a mighty good looking chip nonetheless: the Intel Xe HPC GPU, codename 'Ponte Vecchio', fresh off the conveyor belt and ready for power on.

It's quite the package, as you can see. There are two discrete 'Base' chiplets, or what Intel would prefer to call 'tiles', making up the GPU's core. These likely contain 512 EUs a piece, for 1024 EUs in total, but we're yet to hear the final loadout from Intel directly.

Surrounding each of those are five tiles of varying sizes. At least four are sure to be HBM memory, those on the left-hand side of the GPU look like they fit the bill to me, while those remaining are a mix of 'Compute', 'Rambo Cache', and 'I/O'. 

As a datacentre part, and destined for the Aurora Supercomputer, overall bandwidth is sure to be colossal.

Some of those tiles will be manufactured on Intel 10nm SuperFin, Enhanced SuperFin, 'Next Gen' (presumably 7nm), and external foundry nodes.

All of which is tied together using Intel's Embedded Multi-die Interconnect Bridge technology, or EMIB for short, and Intel's chip-stacking Foveros technology. 

So there's sure to be more than meets the eye here.

More than anything else, however, it's an absolute stunner. Even if it's not destined for our gaming PCs—that's coming with Xe-HPG in the future—it's good to see a brand new GPU with a little mystery in 2021.

Good job, Intel.

Jacob Ridley
Jacob Ridley
Managing Editor, Hardware

Jacob earned his first byline writing for his own tech blog, before graduating into breaking things professionally at PCGamesN. Now he's managing editor of the hardware team at PC Gamer, and you'll usually find him testing the latest components or building a gaming PC.