Intel might be working on its most powerful iGPU for Desktops with the upcoming Nova Lake Desktop CPUs, tackling AMD's Ryzen APU dominance.

Intel To Challenge AMD APUs with Its Own Powerful iGPU on Nova Lake Desktop CPUs

Intel's Nova Lake CPUs were recently reported to feature a mix of Xe3 and Xe3P graphics architectures. The Xe3 architecture was going to be used on the iGPU, while the Xe3P architecture is said to be used by the media/display engine block. There are also going to be certain laptop variants that harness the full Xe3P architecture for both graphics and media/display. But while all of this sounds confusing, it looks like Intel may offer one particular desktop SKU with a powerful graphics solution.

According to the latest details shared by Jaykihn, Intel appears to be preparing a new Nova Lake SKU for desktops with an interesting configuration. While the desktop lineup maxes out with 2 Xe3 cores, this new variant will feature 12 Xe3P cores.

The listed configuration will include 4 P-Cores, 8 E-Cores, and 4 LP-E cores, which rounds up to a total of 16 cores and 16 threads. This is a mid-tier configuration if we look at the whole lineup, which scales up to 52 cores. The iGPU portion is the highlight since it packs 12 cores, 10 more than the rest of the Nova Lake lineup.

Now these 12 iGPU cores are interesting since they aren't based on the current-gen Xe3 design but rather utilize the newer Xe3P architecture, which further refines and optimizes the current GPU core with better performance capabilities, and will likely add newer features too. Some rumors have pointed to a 20-30% performance uplift with Xe3P, though we will wait to see what the final numbers are since Intel has been giving us some big leaps in graphics performance with each Xe generation.

Intel's current Panther Lake "Core Ultra Series 3" family with Xe3 offers phenomenal graphics performance capabilities with 12 Xe3 cores, so 12 Xe3P cores on Nova Lake will be quite a disruptive force. These will also pose a serious challenge to AMD's Ryzen APU lineup, which carries up to 8 RDNA 3.5 iGPU cores, and not the higher-tier Radeon 880M/890M with 12 and 16 cores, respectively. Maybe these Nova Lake chips will force AMD to release its own higher iGPU specs for desktop PCs.

There are a few things I wanted to talk about, like whether we will see a big cache variant with a bigger iGPU configuration in one of the Nova Lake SKUs? Currently, the bLLC cache variants are only focusing on higher core count models, but we have seen in the past that memory bandwidth and cache bandwidth can extract more performance out of iGPUs.

The Nova Lake platform will support higher DDR5 speeds, but acquiring those kits for these SKUs will end their value proposition. So a bigger cache can offset some of those bandwidth bottlenecks. Talking about the platform, it is also said that the 12 Xe3P Desktop CPUs will require two exclusive VCCGT VRM phases on the motherboards. This adds to the list of motherboard requirements for Nova Lake, as only higher-end platforms are expected to unleash the full performance on the higher core count models.

Also, it is interesting that Intel will offer its highest iGPU capabilities with a mid-tier Nova Lake CPU. This makes a lot of sense as users with higher-end CPUs will most likely be running a high-end discrete GPU, and will only need the iGPU for diagnostic purposes. It will also be nice if Intel can bring higher iGPU core counts to entry-level models, making for a true budget proposition in today's volatile PC market, where component prices are going through the roof, leaving entry-level and budget builders with few options.

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