Something to look forward to: Hot off the heels of Intel's modest DG1 discrete graphics card getting performance tested in the wild, trusted leaker TUM_APISAK has suggested the introduction of a new addition to Intel's incoming DG2 line, a card slotting into a second-from-top tier that's capable of duking it out with Nvidia's RTX 3070 and AMD's RX 6700 XT.

While the tweet is rather short, it points to the existence of another SKU within Intel's DG2 lineup, which was previously thought to only consist of five models, and helps clear up the picture of how Intel's upcoming graphics product stack is going to shape up. This new GPU comes toting 448 execution units, joining a previously-established 384-EU SKU that is also cut down from the top model's 512 EUs.

TUM_APISAK's tweet puts the 448 EU model up against AMD's RX 6700 XT and Nvidia's RTX 3070, and claims that it comes out only 8% behind the former and 5% behind the latter. This roughly matches up with previous information that the 512-EU SKU was set to be targeting the RTX 3070 Ti (which itself claims only limited gains over the 3070), both DG2 GPUs bracketing the Nvidia card with the difference of 64 EUs either way.

As the 384-EU model is getting 12 GB of GDDR6 VRAM, the new SKU should have that same configuration at a minimum, which already matches the RX 6700 XT and beats both the RTX 3070 and 3070 Ti on that front -- although it's also worth noting that the RTX 3070 still maintains the best VRAM bandwidth out of the three unless the new SKU uses the same 256-bit memory bus of the highest DG2 model.

The alleged 1.8 GHz boost clock speeds also line up with previous leaks about the top SKU, while at the bottom end of the product stack the 128 EU model is claimed to boost all the way up to 1.9 GHz -- a great deal higher than clock speeds claimed for the higher 256-EU model, but that's to be expected as those covered mobile versions of the GPUs.

It also claims a 12% lead over Nvidia's GTX 1650, although with the incoming RTX 3050 Ti claiming performance akin to the incumbent GTX 1660 Ti, it might have trouble establishing itself in the entry-level market unless it's aggressively priced.

Rumored Intel Xe DG2 mobile specifications

  SKU 1 SKU 2 SKU 3 SKU 4 SKU 5 SKU 6
EUs 512 448 384 256 196 128
Boost Clock (Mobile) 1100 MHz ? 600 MHz 450 MHz ?
Turbo Clock (Mobile) 1800 MHz ? 1800 MHz ? 1400 MHz ?
Turbo Clock (Desktop) ? 1800 MHz ? 1900 MHz
Memory Capacity 16 GB 12 GB+ 12 GB 8 GB 4 GB
Memory Speed 16 Gbps
Memory Type GDDR6
Bus Type 256-bit ? 192-bit 128-bit 64-bit
Mobile TDP (exc. memory) 100w ? 100 W ?

It's worth noting that no metric, benchmark or testing suite was given for these performance numbers -- and drivers can be just as important to real-world GPU performance as the silicon itself, so they should still best be taken with the usual pinch of salt.

Plus, all of the GPUs are rumored to be produced on TSMC's 6 nm process, meaning that ongoing high demand for the foundry's silicon could become a bottleneck for availability no matter how aggressively Intel prices its GPUs on release.