Intel Kaby Lake-G with AMD Vega graphics 'receives' drivers 14 months later

Robert Sole 29 March, 2020

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The competition between Intel and AMD in the processor market (and soon, the graphics market) is fierce. That's why we were all surprised months ago when we learned about the Kaby Lake-G processors. These processors were barely manufactured and were exclusively for the Hades Canyon NUC . The interesting thing about these processors is that they integrated an AMD Vega GPU, which hadn't received driver updates for months.

The agreement between Intel and AMD for the development of the Kaby Lake-G for the Hades Canyon in 2017 did not last long. The Kaby Lake chips integrated an RX Vega M with a Kaby Lake CPU in the same package. For its integration, Intel used its own high-performance manufacturing systems.

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Intel updates the Kaby Lake-G drivers

Its duration was very short and few solutions based on these strange processors were seen. Intel in October 2019 ended this strange association due to its own Xe graphics architecture. Despite everything, the company is in charge of validating and maintaining the graphics of the Radeon Vega. And even with the termination of the association, Intel promised to continue to release graphics drivers for five years.

The problem is that for 14 months the company has not seen fit to launch new drivers, until now. This has left many users exposed to various 0-day vulnerabilities detected in February 2019. Tom's Hardware in February this year contacted Intel to inquire about this and the company responded:

8th Generation Intel Core processors with discrete graphics will follow the typical Intel driver support model, which is to provide driver updates for approximately five years after a product launch. OEMs and customers will get their drivers and support directly from Intel. We are currently working on the next graphics driver update, and we expect the next driver to be available in the next few months

After 14 months Intel releases a lamentable PDF that tells users to download the graphic drivers for the RX Vega 64 from the AMD website. These drivers are based on AMD's Adrenalin 2020, and the latest drivers can be installed in Hades Canyon . As they say, better late than never.