Intel's new DG1-based Iris Xe graphics cards are only compatible with Intel motherboards and CPUs. This news comes just days after Intel revealed the first Xe graphics cards, which will be manufactured by board partners and sold in retail PCs.

Legit Reviews reports that the new graphics cards require specific UEFI BIOS support in order to work. Intel's statement reads, "The Iris Xe discrete add-in cards are designed to work with 9th generation (Coffee Lake-S) and 10th generation (Comet Lake-S) Intel Core desktop processors and Intel B460, H410, B365, H310C chipset and based motherboards and will be sold as part of a pre-built system. These motherboards require a special BIOS that supports Intel Iris Xe, so the cards are not compatible with other systems."

We have contacted Intel for more details, but the immediate question is whether this is just a technical expedient or a policy that may be relevant in the future. Our best guess is the former. This is an entirely new GPU architecture, and it is easier for Intel to validate and ensure stability on a narrow range of its own platforms than it is to make it available on any PC with PCI Express ports.

The last thing Intel wants when covering Xe cards in end-user systems for the first time is reports of crashes and bugs. On the other hand, one cannot completely rule out the possibility that Intel will use Xe graphics as a tool to lock gamers into a pure Intel platform.

Whatever the truth, it is a matter for the future. These early DG1-based boards are not gaming GPUs. Rather, they are low-end multimedia cards with basic 3D capabilities. In fact, they have fewer execution units than the Xe-based integrated GPUs found in the latest Tiger Lake mobile CPUs.

Intel's Xe graphics will have to wait for DG2 and its 512 execution units, coming later this year, to really show their worth for the first time in serious gaming applications. Early information suggests that it will deliver performance on par with the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070, but this is only speculation at this point.