Intel's discrete DG2 graphics card is 'right around the corner'

Intel's discrete graphics card offering, its Xe HPG DG2, could arrive sooner than we all thought. According to a tweet from Pete Brubaker, Game Developer Relations engineer at Intel, the chip giant is looking for a Senior Game Developer Relations Engineer to support DG2, and in that tweet, Brubaker mentions, "DG2 is right around the corner!" 

Intel hasn't promised much in the way of a release date for its discrete graphics card, beyond another Tweet from the official Intel Graphics account that its Xe HPG (High-Performance Gaming) can handle ray tracing and that we'll see it in 2021. Exactly how long 'right around the corner' is remains open to debate, but if we were to hazard a guess that would still be autumn 2021 at the earliest.

We'd absolutely love to see another manufacturer in the gaming graphics cards arena competing against AMD and Nvidia, but we're well aware that this is not going to be an easy task. It's also not the first time Intel has tried doing so in semi-recent memory, with its ill-fated Larabee concept ultimately faltering. 

Hopefully, Intel learned a lot from that experience and wants to make sure everything is in place this time around. 

At the same time, right now seems like a perfect time to launch a new gaming GPU into a market that is so desperate for hardware. As long as DG2 is even vaguely competitive it should find there's an eager market awaiting it. Managing top gaming CPUs and GPUs will be a tough juggling act for Intel, but hopefully, it's in it for the long game, and not just out to make a quick buck.

There are no juicy details in the job description itself, other than a preference for some form of graphics programming experience. Intel lays claim to a decent game developer relations team already, but the way Brubaker's initial tweet frames it as relating to DG2 indicates a desire for expansion going forward into this brave new world of discrete Intel graphics cards.