Intel will focus the development of its graphics drivers on its new dedicated Arc cards, abandoning its many iGPUs in passing.
On the GPU side, Intel only has eyes for its dedicated Arc graphics cards. Logically, the firm is launching into a new market where the opposing forces have been established for decades, with the ambition of playing spoilsport (on the entry level, even the mid-range). A context in which we learn that its software developments related to GPUs (the sacrosanct graphics drivers) will be largely reoriented towards these dedicated GPUs, even if it means abandoning the graphics chipsets integrated into its processors (iGPU).
In reality, these graphics chipsets will still get a follow-up – still a happy one – but it will be less frequent in the future. There is talk of a quarterly update integrating, in particular, bug fixes and other security patches. But we can no longer expect Intel to regularly deliver dedicated drivers for the release of certain popular games. The founder calls this change the move to a “legacy” support model.
This concerns Intel HD and UHD graphics circuits, as well as Iris, Iris Pro and Iris Xe, from processors released since 2015 (sixth generation Core i, alias Skylake) to those of the tenth generation (Comet Lake and Ice Lake ) and even some Celeron and Pentium such as Jasper Lake. So certainly, the announcement is likely to make people unhappy, but let’s be honest: these iGPUs are not powerful enough to take full advantage of recent 3D games, which are the subject of specific driver developments, especially from the competition.