Intel Says Its First Discrete Graphics Chips Will Be Available in 2020 (marketwatch.com)

Ryan Shrout, reporting for MarketWatch: Intel CEO Brian Krzanich disclosed during an analyst event last week that it will have its first discrete graphics chips available in 2020. This will mark the beginning of the chip giant's journey toward a portfolio of high-performance graphics products for various markets including gaming, data center and artificial intelligence (AI). Some previous rumors suggested a launch at CES 2019 this coming January might be where Intel makes its graphics reveal, but that timeline was never adopted by the company. It would have been overly aggressive and in no way reasonable with the development process of a new silicon design. In November 2017 Intel brought on board Raja Koduri to lead the graphics and compute initiatives inside the company. Koduri was previously in charge of the graphics division at AMD helping to develop and grow the Radeon brand, and his departure to Intel was thought to have significant impact on the industry.

Comments

First discrete graphics?

[slew]

What about this one?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:First discrete graphics?

[Solandri]

In modern terminology, the difference between "discrete" and "integrated" graphics is not whether it's a standalone plug-in card. It's the presence of VRAM - high-speed, high-bandwidth RAM dedicated for use by the video card for 3D rendering. Discrete GPUs come with their own VRAM. Integrated GPUs use system RAM (though they're increasingly showing up with their own small buffer of high-speed RAM that acts more like a cache), with a much smaller amount of dedicated RAM for framebuffers.

The video cards from the era you've linked either used system RAM, or only did 2D graphics using a few MB of onboard RAM for the framebuffer. So they are analogous to today's integrated graphics. The need for the GPU to have gobs of its own high-speed VRAM didn't arise until 3D graphics began pushing frames faster than you could transfer needed data across the bus from system RAM to the video card. Most of that VRAM is taken up by textures used for 3D graphics, so only 3D graphics cards have large amounts of it. A framebuffer, found on both 3D and 2D graphics cards, is only 8 MB for 1080p 32-bit color. So there's no need for large amounts of VRAM in an integrated video card.

Back then, we called them a 3D video card vs a 2D video card. That nomenclature was abandoned once even low-end 2D video cards became capable of rudimentary 3D graphics. The distinction then shifted to whether it was a "serious" 3D graphics card with its own dedicated VRAM, or whether it was a 2D video card (commonly integrated into the motherboard) which could do 3D graphics in a pinch by borrowing system RAM to use as VRAM.

Re:First discrete graphics?

[kriston]

No, the i740 had its own, dedicated VRAM. Therefore, this is not Intel's first discrete graphics chipset.