Intel Arc 'Alchemist' GPU Will Come With DisplayPort 2.0, Support Up To 16K Display Resolution

Just a few days after officially announcing the Intel Arc brand targeting the dedicated gaming graphics processor market, as well as background information on the first-generation Xe-HPG 'Alchemist' (DG2) product line , Intel has begun to reveal some more important specifications that will be supported on this GPU model. In particular, the most notable is the appearance of DisplayPort 2.0, which means the ability to support super high-resolution screens with extremely deep colors.

This week, Intel announced patches that lay the groundwork for DisplayPort 2.0 support with the 'i915' core graphics driver, according to a report from Phoronix. In it, there are some patches specifically mentioning Display Port 2.0 UHBR [Ultra High Bit Rate] and 128b/132b channel encoding supporting Intel's DG2 product line. Specifically, a patch reveals that upcoming Intel GPU models will be able to handle UHBR 20 mode that supports 80Gbps raw bandwidth. This is a good sign, suggesting that at least a few upcoming Arc 'Alchemist' GPUs will support DisplayPort 2.0 with UHBR 20 for extreme transfer performance.

Intel Arc 'Alchemist' GPU Will Come With DisplayPort 2.0, Support Up To 16K Display Resolution Picture 1

More specifically, DisplayPort 2.0 with UHBR 20 interface has an effective data transfer rate of 77.37Gbps with 128b/132b encoding, allowing for higher resolution processing, better refresh rate. , as well as the ability to display a wider color gamut. Only one DisplayPort 2.0 cable will be able to support an 8K 30-bit (10-bit per color) display at 60Hz HDR without any kind of compression (DSC or chroma subsampling).

The same cable can support 24-bit 10K displays at 60Hz with HDR without any compression standards. Meanwhile, with Display Stream Compression (DSC), a single DisplayPort 2.0 cable can support displays with up to 16K resolution at 60Hz or lower resolution displays at high refresh rates. For instance, gamers can now expect to experience an 8K display with a 120Hz refresh rate, although in practice it is far from straightforward to achieve such a setup.

The DisplayPort 2.0 connection standard will use USB-C ports and operate on Thunderbolt 3 technology. Although Thunderbolt is usually limited to 40Gb/s, it does support 2-way connections. Whereas DisplayPort is a one-way connection, it is entirely possible to use the full 80Gbps bandwidth of this protocol.

Samuel Daniel

Update 20 August 2021