CES 2020 | Intel previews 10nm+ Tiger Lake with Xe DG1 graphics and integrated Thunderbolt 4

News about the successor to Intel Ice Lake, the Tiger Lake platform, has been pretty scarce save for a few leaked benchmark sightings. At CES 2020, Intel showed off a preview of actual Tiger Lake silicon. Tiger Lake is the successor to Ice Lake and is based on a 10nm+ process with an integrated Intel DG1 GPU based on the Xe architecture. 

Tiger Lake will be based on the Willow Cove architecture, which is the successor to Sunny Cove-based Ice Lake. It is expected in devices sometime this year, but that will depend a lot on how Intel can maximize yields in the new process. Intel did not delve into any architectural details, but the key takeaways are that Tiger Lake will deliver double digit performance gen on gen, improvements in AI, integrated Thunderbolt 4 that offers 4x the throughput of USB 3 and most importantly, an integrated Xe-based DG1 GPU. 

Intel also previewed the first Xe-based DG1 discrete GPU. Again, not much details were offered apart from a short play of Destiny 2 (without any metrics, of course) and showing off some laptop form factors that would be powered by Tiger Lake. From what we can ascertain from recent driver leaks, Tiger Lake's DG1 would be a low power part (25W) with dedicated GDDR6 VRAM and performance on the lines of a GeForce GTX 1050. Xe DG1 would also accelerate AI workloads by providing full INT8 support. There is also a possibility of some SLI-esque setup with a normal iGPU on the Tiger Lake die and the dedicated DG1 component, but that is unconfirmed at the moment. 

Contrary to expectation, Intel did not comment on AMD's Ryzen 4000 APU announcement. The rest of the keynote was more focused on AI, video encoding enhancements, and a "Horseshoe Bend" form factor concept device. So, from a purely consumer perspective, AMD definitely seems to have stolen the limelight at CES 2020 despite Intel's attempts to wrestle some of the same earlier in the day with the announcement of the 10th gen Comet Lake-H chips.