Intel has given an official codename for its first 12th-generation graphics release. It's called Ponte Vecchio. As VideoCardz explains, that's based on an old stone bridge found in Florence, Italy. It's an homage to the way that the GPU uses interconnection between the various graphics cores -- Intel refers to the technology as its Compute Express Link.
Unfortunately, this isn't a gaming GPU, or at least one that is designed with gaming in mind. It's designed for high-end rendering calculations. It's part of Intel's Project Aurora initiative which will combine Sapphir Rapids Xeon CPUs with the new Ponte Vecchio GPUs to create super computers on a new, grand scale.
Still, as the first entry in Intel's new XE range, this could give us some insight into how Intel's other graphics chips will function, and potential its gamer graphics cards too. The Ponte Vecchio GPU wiill leverage Intel's 3D stacking technology known as Foveros. That puts the GPU and memory on the same die, one on top of the other. That should mean exceedingly low memory latency, which has been a problem for many modern GPUs.
That, combined with the allegedly exceedingly large cache for the new GPu, its high-memory bandwidth, and its high double-precision FP throughput, should make these excellent GPUs for productivity tasks, but theoretically solid GPUs for gaming too, once they've been configured for it.
Intel Aurora won't be out until 2021, but we expect to see Intel's first Xe gaming cards in 2020.
