12th Generation Intel® Core™ Processors Datasheet, Volume 1 of 2

Datasheet

ID 655258
Date 28/10/2021 00:00:00
Public Content

A newer version of this document is available. Customers should click here to go to the newest version.

Document Table of Contents

Hybrid Graphics

Microsoft* Windows* 10 operating system enables the Windows*10 Hybrid graphics framework wherein the GPUs and their drivers can be simultaneously utilized to provide users with the benefits of both performance capability of discrete GPU (dGPU) and low-power display capability of the processor GPU (iGPU). For instance, when there is a high-end 3D gaming workload in progress, the dGPU will process and render the game frames using its graphics performance, while iGPU continues to perform the display operations by compositing the frames rendered by dGPU. We recommend that OEMS should seek further guidance from Microsoft* to confirm that the design fits all the latest criteria defined by Microsoft* to support HG.

Microsoft* Hybrid Graphics definition includes the following:

  1. The system contains a single integrated GPU and a single discrete GPU.
  2. It is a design assumption that the discrete GPU has a significantly higher performance than the integrated GPU.
  3. Both GPUs shall be physically enclosed as part of the system.
    1. Microsoft* Hybrid DOES NOT support hot-plugging of GPUs
    2. OEMS should seek further guidance from Microsoft* before designing systems with the concept of hot-plugging
  4. Starting with Windows*10 Th1 (WDDM 2.0), a previous restriction that the discrete GPU is a render-only device, with no displays connected to it, has been removed. A render-only configuration with NO outputs is still allowed, just NOT required.