Intel’s Arrow Lake CPUs which are expected to arrive next year will come with a slightly upgraded Arc Xe-LPG Plus GPU which offers XMX acceleration.
Intel Meteor Lake Gets Arc Xe-LPG With DP4a, Arrow Lake Gets Arc Xe-LPG Plus With XMX Acceleration
Based on the latest data by Coelacanth-Dream, Intel’s Arrow Lake CPUs will be equipped with an Arc Xe-LPG GPU which is a slightly better version of the one featured on the Meteor Lake CPUs. It will offer better AI acceleration that comes through the addition of XMX units and this change will also result in Intel rebranding the iGPU to Xe-LPG Plus whereas the Meteor Lake version is simply known as Xe-LPG.
The addition of Intel’s Arrow Lake Arc “Xe-LPG Plus” GPU was added to the latest IGC Patch which still shows that both Meteor Lake and Arrow Lake GPUs mostly retain the same functionality but some segments have been added or improved. One of these additions is the new XMX units (Xe Matrix Extensions) which are found on the discrete graphics chips but Intel had to conserve space on Meteor Lake by removing XMX units from the Xe-LPG Render Slices and moving to the traditional DP4a instructions.
These instructions still do a phenomenal job in accelerating and supporting XeSS which is Intel’s upscaling technology as Meteor Lake has showcased up to 2x the performance in games in a very recent demo. But having XMX means that we can expect even better performance when XeSS is enabled and better image quality on the next-gen Arrow Lake CPUs. It remains unclear if the Arc Xe-LPG Plus GPUs will be integrated across the board for Arrow Lake or limited to certain high-end gaming SKUs but it will definitely be exciting to see enhanced graphics capabilities for future Intel client chips.
The Intel Arrow Lake Arc Xe-LPG Plus GPU will be making use of the Alchemist architecture but will be based on a TSMC 3nm process node while the current GPU tile is based on TSMC’s 5nm node. It will be the last integrated GPU featuring Alchemist before Intel moves to the higher-end Xe2 GPU known as Battlemage on its Lunar Lake and then Xe3 Celestial for future client chips.
Intel ARC Gaming GPU Lineup
| GPU Family | Intel Xe-HPG | Intel Xe-HPG | Intel Xe2-HPG | Intel Xe3-HPG | Intel Xe Next | Intel Xe Next Next |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GPU Products | ARC Alchemist GPUs | ARC Alchemist+ GPUs | ARC Battlemage GPUs | ARC Celestial GPUs | ARC Druid GPUs | ARC E*** GPUs |
| GPU Segment | Mainstream Gaming (Discrete) | Mainstream Gaming (Discrete) | Mainstream / High-End Gaming (Discrete) | Mainstream / High-End Gaming (Discrete) | Mainstream / High-End Gaming (Discrete) | Mainstream / High-End Gaming (Discrete) |
| GPU Gen | Gen 12 | Gen 12 | Gen 13? | Gen 14? | Gen 15? | Gen 16? |
| Process Node | TSMC 6nm | TSMC 6nm | TSMC 4nm? | TSMC 3nm? | TBA | TBA |
| Specs / Design | 512 EUs / 1 Tile / 1 GPU | 512 EUs / 1 Tile / 1 GPU | 1024 EUs / 1 Tile / 1 GPU | TBA | TBA | TBA |
| Memory Subsystem | GDDR6 | GDDR6 | GDDR6(X)? | TBA | TBA | TBA |
| Launch | 2022 | 2023? | 2024? | 2026 | 2026+ | 2026+ |