What just happened? At a recent event showcasing the new Lunar Lake mobile processors, Intel let slip some juicy details about its next-gen GPU architecture, codenamed Xe2. This updated design will power not just the integrated graphics in Lunar Lake chips, but also Intel's upcoming discrete "Battlemage" gaming graphics cards. But perhaps the most significant advancement is improved compatibility with games.
With Xe2, Intel marks a shift in how it refers to its GPU tech. There are no more confusing Xe-HPG or Xe-LPG naming schemes. Instead, Xe2 is a unified architecture that will scale across Intel's entire product stack, from low-power laptop chips to beefy desktop GPUs.
The nuts and bolts have seen an overhaul too. Xe2 GPUs are built from "Render Slices," each containing four "Xe-cores," which in turn pack eight "Vector Engines" apiece. The Lunar Lake mobile chips coming later this year will rock a modest eight Xe-cores. But if you want a preview of what Battlemage might offer, look no further than the current Arc A770 – it has 32 Xe-cores under the hood.
Of course, more cores don't automatically always mean better performance. The Xe2 architecture has been redesigned to improve gaming compatibility, a major shortcoming of Intel's Arc "Alchemist" GPUs. Tom Petersen, Intel's graphics spokesperson, said at the briefing that "most often you'll see games running right out of the box" on Xe2 hardware.
The key to this revamped gaming experience is "correcting" the wrongs of the previous generation, Petersen revealed, alongside a slew of updates like switching to more efficient SIMD16 vector operations.
Ray tracing hardware has also been overhauled, along with boosting mesh shading, vertex processing, and texture sampling throughput. Intel has also put in the work to align Xe2's graphics commands more closely with what modern game engines expect.
Other Xe2 highlights include new XMX blocks with 67 peak INT8 TOPS for accelerated AI computations. The display engine has leveled up too, now supporting 8K60 HDR, 1440p360 output, and the latest HDMI 2.1, DisplayPort 2.1, and eDP 1.5 standards.
All these architectural enhancements come with the promise of serious performance gains. Compared to the previous Xe graphics, Intel claims a 50% performance uplift over Meteor Lake's at the same power.
Lunar Lake mobile CPUs are slated to arrive in the third quarter of this year, giving us our first taste of the Xe2 silicon. As for discrete Battlemage GPUs, Intel is remaining coy on an exact launch window. But with NVIDIA's next-gen "Blackwell" RTX 50 series looming, you can bet Intel wants Battlemage out sooner rather than later.