Intel Ivy Bridge to Feature DirectX 11 Integrated Graphics

With the release of the Sandy Bridge core, Intel started an entirely new era for integrated graphics, managing to deliver a performance level that is up to par with entry-level discrete GPUs, but the company won't rest here, recent reports suggesting that Ivy Bridge will get a DirectX 11 compatible graphics core.

Currently, AMD is the only company to deliver such a product thanks to the Ontario and Zacate APUs that are fully DirectX 11 compliant, which are to be succeeded by the company's second Fusion chips, dubbed Llano, in Q2 2011.

However, AMD won't remain the only player in this game for long, as the zol.com.cn website suggests that future Ivy Bridge processors will carry a DX 11 integrated graphics core that further improves the GPU found inside the Sandy Bridge micro-architecture.

According to the same website, Intel didn't feel that it was necessary to add DirectX capabilities to the graphics core designed into Sandy Bridge since only a few applications take advantage of this technology.

Ivy Bridge is the code name given to the 22nm die shrink of the current Sandy Bridge architecture and is slated to be introduced early next year, probably during CES 2012.

Compared to SNB, Ivy Bridge will feature improved power efficiency thanks to the new manufacturing process.

Besides DirectX 11 compatibility, Ivy Bridge will double the number of EUs available, some reports even suggesting that the chip is designed to feature as much as 1GB of dedicated on-die graphics memory.

Released in 2008, DirectX 11 improves the previous DX 10.1 API by adding GPGPU support through DirectCompute, improved multi-threading and tessellation support.

The Sandy Bridge processor line is Intel's first CPU architecture to integrate the graphics core on the same die as the CPU and includes a series of specialized accelerators to improve certain multimedia tasks such as video content creation.