Intel's Raja Koduri teases the "Big Fabulous Package" — a 4-tile Arctic Sound Intel Xe dGPU aimed at HPC applications

Two years ago, we reported about two Intel dGPUs in the works, Arctic Sound and Jupiter Sound, which would be made as multi-chip modules. Earlier this year, we saw the first references to a 500 W Arctic Sound GPU coupled to HBM2e memory and with PCIe Gen4 compatibility. Now, Intel graphics chief Raja Koduri showed off what appears to be a family of Xe GPUs from Intel's Folsom labs. This includes the 4-tile Arctic Sound, Xe DG1, and an Xe HPC accelerator.

Raja teased three GPUs and a test setup. The one on the left (see first image below) was already known to be an Xe part for HPC. The new ones are those in the top right and bottom right with the former expected to be the Xe DG1 and the latter, a 4-tile Arctic Sound prototype. Intel dGPUs are expected to be multi-chip modules stacked in 1, 2, and 4 tile-based configurations.

Raja refers to the 4-tile Arctic Sound GPU as a Big Fabulous Package (BFP). From previous reports, we know that this "BFP" prototype has a 48 V power requirement. BFP is, therefore, targeted at servers and HPC workloads and is not meant for gaming.

It will still be some time before we can see a proper Xe mainstream dGPU. Raja had previously confirmed that Intel's primary focus is on enhancing integrated graphics and "segments immediately above". Accordingly, we will first see Xe going mainstream in Tiger Lake's Gen12 iGPUs.

Though Tiger Lake may not beat AMD Ryzen 4000 Renoir APUs in terms of raw CPU power, the integrated Gen12 Xe can clearly give Renoir's Vega 8 a run for its money.