On February 10th, a leaked slide showed Intel's tick-tock approach in full swing with the Haswell 22nm core-based processor, planned for 2013. With Ivy Bridge nearing release, we are now learning a little more about Haswell's integrated GPU (iGPU) from a leaked slide by Turkish website DonanimHaber.
Haswell's iGPU will feature support for DirectX 11.1, which takes advantage of application programming interface (API) optimization to improve performance for users. DirectX 11.1 will be available with the release of Windows 8. Also, it will feature digital display repartition, where digital display ports are wired directly to the CPU and analog displays are handled by a Random Access Memory Digital-to-Analog Converter (RAMDAC) located in the Platform Controller Hub (PCH). With current Intel iGPUs, all display functions are handled by PCH over the Flexible Display Interface (FDI). This design change will help reduce any possible bottlenecks with higher resolution digital outputs while maintaining analog display quality.
In addition, it will support OpenGL 3.2 and OpenCL 1.2, which will improve performance in certain general purpose computing on graphics processing units (GPGPU) supported applications. The iGPU will feature new Auto-Stereoscopic 3D (AS3D), which will provide 3D support that is typically only available through the use of discrete GPUs. It will support up to three independent displays: HDMI 1.4, DVI, Display Port, VGA.
Please keep in mind, of course, that the information is from an unverified source by DonanimHaber. We won't know for sure until Intel shows its hand. Stay tuned!
