Intel Will Update Graphics With Gen 11 For Ice Lake

Intel Gen 11 Brings 5K and 8K Support

Staring with the new Core “i” series in 2010, the company has been steadily improving their integrated graphics solutions. Over time, the performance has gotten to the point where they are quite usable for basic tasks. Intel is also planning to enter the discrete GPU market, inviting more analysis for their graphics architecture. Ahead of the possible launch next year, we now have more details about the new Gen 11 graphics architecture.

Perhaps due to the delays with 14nm and 10nm, Intel is working with a somewhat aging graphics solution. The current Gen 10 graphics Intel uses are largely based on Gen 9 graphics from Skylake in 2015. Furthermore, the changes made since then are relatively minor. Gen 9.5 and Gen 10 simply just add more display output options. For the new Gen 11, it looks like it will be much of the same for now. The new graphics will add support for DisplayPort 1.4a and DSC, allowing 5K and 8K output.

Gen 11 iGPUs Will Arrive With Ice Lake

The problems with 5K and 8K is that the bandwidth requirements go way up. Intel’s Gen 11 requires new display stream compression and DisplayPort 1.4a in tandem to push the higher resolutions. Due to these new technologies, 60 Hz 8K and 120 Hz 5K is possible. At the same time, it is important to note that performance is not there for gaming of course. This has more to do with new high-density displays for ultrabooks and premium units. It is already common to have 4K displays scaled down to display 720p or 1080p. 5K and 8K is the logical extension.

Finally, an important consideration to keep in mind is that Ice Lake is not coming soon. Next year, we will get Cannon Lake, the 10nm refresh of Skylake. Only after that will Ice Lake arrive with a new CPU architecture. This means Ice Lake will arrive sometime in late 2019 or even in 2020. With an updated CPU side, Intel may also want to update the underlying GPU architecture as well. This might give us a unified GPU architecture for both the iGPU and dGPU from Intel which will be very interesting.