Intel abandons AMD ahead of Xe launch

In 2017, rumors surfaced that Intel would improve on the graphics front – with the help of AMD. The then unlikely data came true at the beginning of the following year when the company introduced Kaby Lake-G, which combined four cores of the Skylake architecture with a Vega-based graphics circuit from AMD and 4 GB of HBM2 memory.

Now Intel is closing down the investment and Kaby Lake-G is reaching End of Lifestatus (EOL). Intel Kaby Lake-G was appreciated by enthusiasts, but few computer manufacturers chose to embrace the unique processor series. The impact was therefore limited and no sequel ever came.

The announcement comes ahead of Intel’s launch of a completely new graphics architecture – Gen12, formerly called Arctic Sound. This will be Intel’s first real major investment in graphics, and will be used in everything from data centers to dedicated graphics cards and not least integrated into the company’s own processors.

Intel’s architecture Gen12 will be the biggest change in 14 years and will be released in the form of graphics cards in the year 2020. The same year, Intel launches the processor family Tiger Lake, which in addition to Willow Cove on the processor side will also be the first to integrate the new graphics architecture.

Anyone who is sitting on a computer system with Kaby Lake-G and wondering what will happen to future drivers for the graphics part need not be worried, says Intel. According to the company, they follow their “standard policy” with driver support for five years from the launch of the product, which here means until the beginning of 2023.

Read more about Intel’s graphics architecture Gen12: