Intel has announced the official Vulkan graphic API support for Skylake and Kaby Lake GPUs. Previously it was in beta for months. Other releases were also in different flavors of beta, but Intel’s 15.45.14.4590 driver is the first release added in full API support. The latest driver will only support Windows 10 on Kaby Lake, but the sixth-generation GPUs are supported in Windows 7,8.1, and 10. That points out the artificiality of the restriction. Kaby Lake and Skylake use identical GPUs. So, their graphic pipelines are alike.
Early test of DX12 showed increase for the leading technology company Intel in that mode and the company has allocated some tech demos showing significant boosts from the API, but there’s not much change in the way of benchmarks or performance comparisons with recent cards or drivers.
Even without the equitable performance data to examine, this kind of support does matter. Intel may not have much in the way of enthusiast GPU market share, but it still ships more CPUs with combined graphics than AMD or Nvidia ship discrete GPUs Graphics Card per year. For back up support on DirectX 12 and Vulkan means that game developers might like to target these APIs. Specifically, they can evaluate their performance on Intel hardware, rather than solely looking to Teams Red and Green.
Not much has been said by Intel about where they intend to take its GPU hardware in the future. Kaby Lake and Skylake use the same GPU core. They have been heard saying that Chipzilla might license AMD IP for future graphic cores. But, it is under great speculation of what kind of arrangement this would reflect. Intel did add Vulkan support is the best for the entire GPU ecosystem and could keep encourage developers to consider API alongside DirectX12 for future gaming projects. Intel’s current 128MB of EDRAM isn’t really common for 1080p gaming at acceptable detail levels, but a 256MB EDRAM cache could easily resolve that issue. Whether Intel would be able to get the pricing it wanted for the chip is an entirely different question.
All Orders are Fulfilled in the U.S.A.
All shipments must comply with U.S.A export laws.
No exceptions.
The only independent distributor
with a NO CHINA SOURCING Pledge
If You Would Like to Get High Quality IT Hardware Parts, Just Click on The "Request For Quote" Button Below.
Request for Quote
