With AMD and Nvidia's GPU shortages continuing, it is hard to imagine a better time for a competitor to emerge. According to one leaker, Intel is looking to fill this gap with its DG2 Xe-HPG card, which is scheduled to be announced at CES 2022.

The report comes from Hardware Academy on the Chinese social networking site Weibo, and while there is always an element of ambiguity in translation, the sentiment here is fairly clear. Citing the source as "reliable," the translated post claims that "DG2 discrete graphics cards will be released at CES next January. [Intel revealed last month that the DG2 GPUs are in the sampling phase, the stage before mass production begins.

Likewise, we tried several different online translators to see if the word "release" changes to something more subjective, like "launch" or "unveiled." If not, it appears to suggest a January release. If so, that would mean we could get more than just a teaser at the Intel Innovation Event on October 27-28.

Preliminary specs for the Xe HPG line of upcoming GPUs were actually revealed as far back as March, as they were visible and hidden on Intel's website. The cards are expected to cover all budgets with up to 512 execution units (EU) and 16GB of GDDR6 memory.

On paper, this means that this GPU could be a serious contender in the gaming arena. But of course, there can be a huge gap between theoretical performance and actual performance, as it depends a lot on the software side of things and how the architecture behaves in the real world.

Even if the cards end up underperforming compared to their AMD and Nvidia rivals (which is quite possible on the first try), Intel can still benefit from a market environment that is so barren that even older cards are forced to retire. With top-end GPUs being snapped up as soon as they become available, partly due to their suitability for cryptocurrency mining, buyers may be tempted to bet on Intel to boost their gaming habits.

Assuming, of course, that Intel's new GPUs do not suffer from the same scarcity as their rivals. And given the ongoing global chip shortage that is affecting everything from the PS5 restocking to the best smartphones, it would certainly be brave to bet on that outcome.