Dual-GPU Intel Xe Graphics Shows Up in New Benchmark Leak

[harlan4096]

Two is better than one

Hardware sleuth Tum_Apisak spotted not one but two unannounced Intel Gen12 Xe GPUs. According to the SiSoftware submission, the two GPUs worked in unison in some sort of dual-GPU configuration. This will likely further speculation that the Tiger Lake-U processors could theoretically work in a multi-GPU arrangement with Intel's discrete graphics card, which is possible through the driver updates issued last year, but that remains unconfirmed. 

The thought of a discrete GPU working in tandem with the integrated graphics sounds interesting, especially since the leaked benchmarks of Xe devices have always pointed to a single GPU. Nonetheless, we can't discard the likelihood of SiSoftware misreporting the GPU. Xe is unreleased hardware after all, and it's always tricky to pick those up.

The dual-GPU setup reportedly features a total of 192 Execution Units (EUs), which comes out to 1,536 shader cores. Apparently, there's 6.2GB of memory and 2MB of L2 cache onboard as well. The dual-GPU completed the benchmark with a 1.25 GHz clock speed. If we dissect the setup, it falls perfectly in line with our theory.

Intel's DG1 GPU is rumored to sport up to 96 EUs. That would leave us with 96 EUs. As a recap, the maximum graphical configuration on Tiger Lake-U is 96 EUs so the leftover EUs could belong to the processor. The SiSoftware entry states that the test platform is based on a Tiger Lake-U processor so it kind of confirms our theory. 

The Tiger Lake-U (UP3-class) parts with 96 EUs feature maximum clock speeds that vary between 1.3 GHz and 1.35 GHz. Similar to Nvidia's SLI or AMD's CrossFire technology, our hypothesis is that the Intel DG1 and the Xe iGPU would have to match clocks to play nice together. On SLI and CrossFire setups, the GPUs normally operate at the slower clock speed out of the two. Intel doesn't list the iGPU base clock speeds for its Tiger Lake-U chips. For now, we can only assume that the 1.25 GHz may correspond to the DG1.

However, Intel could be preparing more powerful offerings. Last week, one particular Gen12 GPU (via @Tum_Apisak) emerged with a 128 EUs and 3GB of memory. The unit also had 1MB of L2 cache and operated at a 1.4 GHz clock speed. This particular sample resided on a Coffee Lake-S platform, suggesting that it could be the desktop DG1.

It's clear that Intel is progressing quite nicely with the Xe lineup, and we can expect to see more 'inadvertent' teasers of the GPUs in the near future. 
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