Contrary to several recent reports, Intel hasn't yet displayed a render of its planned graphics card. Instead, the company recently displayed some conceptual fan art from Cristiano Siqueira at its Odyssey event at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2019.
Siqueira is the same student from Brazil that made a series of conceptual Intel graphics card images that swept the internet earlier this year, but Intel doesn't employ him, and his self-titled "Dragon Scale" render doesn't represent any planned designs or prototypes from Intel.
Because this is fan art, and Intel says it isn't indicative of its plans, we can't glean any real information from the design. That means the graphics outputs, blower-style fan, lack of an auxiliary PCIe power input, and dual-slot design may not represent the actual design or features.
So why is Intel showing off conceptual renders from its fans? It's all part of its far-ranging "Join the Odyssey" program, which is an outreach program designed to keep enthusiasts up to date on the latest developments through an Intel Gaming Access newsletter, outreach events, and even a beta program. The information-sharing goes both ways, though, as the company also plans to use the program to gather feedback from gamers to help guide its design decisions. That means Intel may choose to take some design cues from community feedback.
Intel is on a graphics tear with the release of its new Graphics Command Center software as it preps for its new discrete cards, and it also recently unveiled its Gen11 integrated graphics architecture. All this comes on the tail of Intel's recent announcement that its Xe Graphics Architecture will power Aurora, the U.S.'s first exascale supercomputer.
Intel is holding its cards close to the chest when it comes to any new details of the forthcoming Xe Graphics architecture and its discrete GPU members of that family, but we have learned quite a bit from the company about the new design over the last few months. You can find in-depth coverage in our Intel Xe Graphics Card feature. In the meantime, check out these other conceptual renders that Siqueria made earlier this year:
Image Credits: Intel
