These look really great on paper, and it's been shown that intel's APU Iris graphics are, in fact, faster than AMD's APU offerings. However, I keep hearing how the graphics driver for Iris is very hit or miss, when it comes to games, and I truly hope Intel will improve their graphics driver by Q1 2022. Intel, past and present, have shown they can write solid, stable, and fast drivers for their controller, and networking chips, so I know what they are capable of.
As for this naming scheme... I guess after Druid, we are going to see Elf, Fairy, Griffin/Goblin, Hobgoblin/Hydra... or something like that
That's been the most common suggestion, as they've actually taken to Twitter to, uh, to solicit future naming ideas. Might not have planned things out long term. We'll likely be seeing Xe GPU McGPUFace pretty soon.
Enema Fungible/Fructose Gerp Harelip iPlaceHolderName Jazz-e Kazzam! Lazy Lemur Mmm, dat's nice! Nah, yeah, nah Ooh! PDF (Pretty Darn Fast) Que qu'est-ce que c'est! Randy Rodent Sizzzle Trinity Unctuous Lightnight Vyrtigo Winsome X-Treme Zzz!
Intel had intended to announce the Cremaster Muscle GPU, which had been polling highly as a name amongst the bigwigs, but it descended in popularity and they went instead with the rather limp "Celestial".
I hope this site has an edit feature. This list could be improved.
Enema Fungible/Fructose Gerp Harelip iPlaceHolderName Jazz-e Kazzam! Lazy Lemur Mmm, dat's nice! Nah, yeah, nah Ooh! PDF (Pretty Darn Fast) Que qu'est-ce que c'est! Randy Rodent Sizzzle Trinity Unctuous Lightnight Vyrtigo Winsome X-Treme Zzz!
Intel had intended to announce the Cremaster Muscle GPU, which had been polling highly as a name amongst the bigwigs, but it descended in popularity and they went instead with the rather limp "Celestial".
I hope this site has an edit feature. This list could be improved.
Is your PC unable to spit out those frames like it used to when you're playing games? Your PC needs an Intel Enema! Boy: 'Since I gave my PC an enema, it's spurting out frames like nobody's business!".
It's a great point. I tried AMD exactly once at a point where they were better on paper, and never went back after experiencing their drivers. For better or worse, I don't even look at AMD anymore.
i wonder how long ago this was. i have had issues with both intel AND amd's drivers, neither of them are perfect. my x99 and 5830 are still in use today, and i can't install the newest drivers for the sata ports or network, both have issues still
I must agree. AMD does have the upper hand in performance and price right now but their drivers, even for laptops are hit and miss still. Swapped a few months ago my HP with 6700hq and GTX 950m to a Lenovo with 4800h and gtx1650. Right from the get go I had issues with the second monitor, with getting out of sleep being very slow and sometimes just ending up in a blue screen, mouse I being disconnected for no reason...issues that I simply did not have with the previous laptop. Actually with the previous intel laptop and Intel igpu I didn't have any issue really.
The issues being that bad haven't existed in over a decade, nowadays I had more issues with Nvidia drivers than AMD ones (RTX 2060 vs my old R9 290 machine).
Iris with 96EUs is indeed faster than Vega 8, albeit with an area deficit that's slightly larger than the performance advantage. Vega is now extremely well-optimized in that regard, though.
Accounting for the differences between Vega and RDNA 2 and factoring in Intel's claims about performance improvements for Xe-HPG, plus expectations from N6, I think we can infer that Xe-HPG should be a very worthy competitor. It's mostly going to come down to price and availability, though.
While I agree that Intel has solid drivers for other ICs. It's not enough to write a solid GPU driver for a new SKU and leave it there. Patches and bug fixes are not the only concern, GPU drivers benefit from frequent optimization even at the per-game level. This speed of driver updates we have never seen from Intel. Intel will have alot of work ahead of them if they want to keep pace with Nvidia, who often work with Developers ahead of launch to release a "game-ready driver".
Great news! Unfortunate for us consumers (and Intel) that they didn't get them out this year, A new player, and slightly less demand than 2021 could make for some actual GPU sales.
No shabby you are missing that Anandtech is some kind of Intel shill or something. Except when they are an AMD shill. Don't forget their love of apple. It's hard to keep up with who the paranoid users here suppose Anandtech is shilling.
I understand, but there's no way Ryan will review intels gpu before ampere and amd's gpu's. However if he does then yes, 100% paid by intel to review it.
With their garbage drivers and their questionable performance with Raja hype on top of the Apple claiming 2080 class GPU performance this garbage which is rumored at RDNA1 and Turing performance is going to be a massive DOA disaster.
Intel should stop poking their eyes and start seeing what they do best and keep doing that. They wasted a ton of cash on all those bs projects and they sold that 5G business to Apple for peanuts and now GPU market. While CPU business is in shambles.
6.8B net massively up from last Q and YoY. They are best at making INCOME, even in tough times, while eventually winning either way.. Net income is needed to do that, and that is what Intel does well. You have options as the guy making piles of net income, such as buying the other guys needed wafers. Buy every wafer you can that AMD/NV/Apple need on the best nodes and make a mint on them. Gpus at worst if you can't sell enough to use all the wafers on server/hedt. It's easy for Intel to waste tons of wafers and still make money on them while severely limiting AMD/NV etc.
Do it until you take their gpu income to zero, while recovering cpu. Mess with apples launches as much as you can also while doing it of course, with the intent of bankrupting both amd/nv or buying them, then ruining TSMC/apple. Just write bigger checks and get it done. As long as you're profiting while limiting their ability to produce (or make NET income) you win. Pat appears to be doing just that. Good work. Intel is run by brains now, not marketing BS. AMD has already lost IMHO, but NV/apple and TSMC a bit more tricky perhaps. You have to Kill AMD/NV (as much as possible that is, kill their income) just as TSMC is ramping up all the new fabs. Then see if TSMC can replace two large customers just as new fabs are needing customers and Intel is fabbing as much as possible for others too. Any TSMC customer you can't destroy, steal. :) Business is war ;)
No. His point boils down to "TODAY most of the buyers of Intel don't have good alternatives". That's true, but the point of everyone else is that that is not a consequence of Intel's actions but of history.
- It certainly seems likely that ever more of the data center business will move to ARM. Graviton1 was just sad -- but helped AMZ learn. Graviton2 is good enough to match Intel for many workloads, even though it's still just not very good. Graviton3 powered by N2 should be very scary to Intel. Meanwhile if you're not AMZ or an AWS user, we have Alibaba doing their thing. We have mutterings and rumors about MS, Google, Facebook going down the Alibaba path. We have Ampere there if you just want to buy a chip.
- How large can Apple grow in the laptop/PC space? Of course there are people who will never buy an Apple PC/laptop for whatever reason, and there are "technical" use cases (controlling signage, PC's used in labs, specialty medical progams, etc) that Apple has no interest in.
But for the generic user who just doesn't care much? Yes, Apple are expensive today (or, more precisely, they do not sell anything at the lowest end). Will that always be the case? Consider how (once they had total control) they grew the iPhone and iPad prices ranges from the lowest end (two year old iPhone, and iPad using two year old chips) to the highest end Pro versions. Why couldn't, and wouldn't, they do that with Macs? I remember the days were Macs were 3 to 5% of PCs. Now they are about 16% in the US. Already that's a non-neglible hit to INTC, but I see no intrinsic reason that couldn't grow to maybe 30% or more, and to grow in other countries.
Right now Apple are kinda letting Asahi Linux do their thing, but they aren't stopping them, and they have explicitly said that it's MS' choice whether they want to put Windows on Macs. When they care, they could push on both those markets -- work to "encourage" MS, work to help Linux if they need help (cf their recent Blender work). Right now they don't need to do that, and they are probably happy to have more flexibility to change things substantially over the next few years as they find their way. But in five years?
Even those technical markets... Used to be that if a PC was being used as a cash register, it was a Wintel PC. Now it's most likely to be some sort of iPad (or even iPhone) using Square or something similar. Things change...
I'm old enough to remember five years ago, when wise experienced people told me it was simply stupid to imagine that Apple could maintain their CPU performance growth to ever hit desktop levels. And those same wise experience people told me that ARM was delusional with their projections of starting to move into the data center seriously in 2020. You can look at those past projections and insist on trivial details like "oh, ARM was off by two years". Or you can look at those past projections, look at today, appreciate how much things have changed, and ask why the trajectory going forward will be different. We know the ARM trajectory, we know what they plan going forward, those of us who *actually* understand something of the technology know they track they are on (both as ARM and as Apple). Meanwhile the Intel trajectory remains more of the same -- extravagant promises, gorgeous slides, followed by sad disillusion as each new product is actually benchmarked. [ Yes yes, we know, that all changes with Alder Lake (or maybe Meteor Lake, or maybe the change happens with Raptor Lake?) ]
That's the point, that's what the sellers are seeing. Stronger competition for Intel (and x86) than ever before, along with no especially compelling response by Intel. It will take years, yes, but let's check again in 2025...
The point about the technical market is a good one - I think a lot of commentators on tech sites don't fully appreciate the extent to which Apple have been building themselves a market from unexpected directions. Use of iPads as PoS is something I'd have never predicted, but you see them all over the place in businesses both large and small.
The release of a lower-end cut-price MacBook based on leftover M1 chips (or some derivative) a year or two from now also seems like a strong likelihood.
It's really not. A larger company buying itself out of trouble isn't a penetrating insight, and "business is war" is a puerile take. Intel currently being large and having the financial clout to weather a storm isn't a definitive indicator of future success (see: IBM), the idea of them being able to bully Apple out of the market by overpaying for wafers is laughable, and the idea that TSMC will collaborate with Intel to destroy most of its own customers is even more absurd.
TheJian just likes to say silly things with an unwarranted air of confidence. It's his Thing.
You realize Apple is already doing this right? Apple’s revenue last quarter was $83b, which dwarf’s Intel’s revenue.
Apple is already locking customers out of TSMC’s best process nodes and Intel has been stated as wanting Apple’s business as a foundry; which implies they don’t have enough business on their own to lock out Apple, let alone Apple and NVIDA and AMD
RDNA 1 and Turing performance with N6 power characteristics would be fine and dandy, TBH, if the price is right. I'm expecting something a little better, though, with some caveats for driver quirks on release.
Intel has a LOT to prove with respect to their willingness to support these dumpster fire's of branding with long term driver support. We've been burned by Intel abandoning video drivers in the past (not to say that AMD or Nvidia is completely innocent here, but, for most everything, you've gotten at least three good years of support at the very least) and even recently with walking away from any support for KadyLake-G as well as abandoning certain Atom based products in the past within 6 months of release. I'm not going to plunk down one glowing red cent on an intel video product at today's over inflated purchase prices for several years until they can prove a few things:
1) They can fix a lot of the bugs in the existing Xe driver for Tiger Lake 2) They can support one of these cards with continually improving drivers for at least 24 months 3) They can produce enough cards to be relevant to the market and have game designers on board to properly support their cards oddities.
If anything Intel has the best driver support (Windows, Linux,Patched monthly with open support). It also has the most market exposure to bugs as their integrated GPU vastly outnumbering the discrete cards on the market. Software and driver support has always been an Intel strength. With every CPU that is Rocket/Tiger lake and newer coming with an Xe flavor iGPU, they have been working on optimizing for this new GPU archetecture for the last 18 months, excellerated that work by sending free DG1 cards to devs to give them an opportunity to ensure the dev's work will function on the swath of iGPU coming with Xe.
But Software and driver support in a dry GPU market really is a secondary concern. Main issue is supply, if Nvidia and AMD GPUs are still 2x MSRP, Intel can win by simplying supply the amrket at MSRP at a rate they don't sell out.
I'm buying one of these. Never caught a fair price on a 3000 series card. Given I have a decent iGPU (I use an 11900K) capable of 720P gaming on its own, and Intel's iGPU and dGPU will share compute, I'm expecting pretty decent outcome as an upgrade over my 1060FE.
The 11900K iGPU is pretty poor - it's barely faster than the HD stuff on Comet Lake. It's certainly not going to be a meaningful factor in performance in combination with a Xe-HPG GPU.
What I want from intel is an equivalent for the M1 chip to have a laptop without discrete GPU that can game like having 3080 in it. under 60watts. M1 has already proved that GPU having a separate memory has a huge power and performance penalty.
They really can't do that since they are stuck at the equivalent of 7nm right now. That would put them at the same as an Apple A13 on 7nm. If you tried to manufacture an M1M, with it's 55b transistors, at 7nm you would have an 86W part. That and it would be 550 square mm or 5.5 square cm, at best. AMD's threadripper totals 24b transistors and 7.12 square cm of silicon, so it's possible that Intel's version of the M1P would be closer to 15 square cm.
Do we have any good comparisons as to the "quality" of the existing Xe iGPU's? Something that tries, at a technical rather than a tribal level, to match them against Apple, AMD, and nV.
Obviously each company has a different situation, but one can at least try to look at things like "performance" per watt or per sq mm, and see if there are substantial differences; of if there are certain important and interesting tasks for which one is substantially more (or less) performant than the other.
The Xe iGPU has perf/mm that's pretty close to Vega 8 on TSMC 7nm - it's about 33% larger and 25% faster, on average. I don't really know how that compares to Nvidia as they haven't released anything that low in the performance range since Pascal.
Drivers and system design have been the main impediment to its success as a low-end gaming chip - the difference between Xe performing at its best and worst is nearly 50%.
I've got a feeling this is going to be one of Intel's bigger blunders of recent memory. There's such a giant bubble in the discrete GPU industry that it's bound to pop sooner than later. The current market is not sustainable one bit by the gaming industry. They're losing PC gamers by troves because of the high prices, and combined with the lessening of the Pandemic, I think PC gaming will be in decline. Also, add to the paradigm shift in SoC design Apple has demonstrated, I think the era of the discrete GPU may be nearing its end, and won't be able to easily recover this next bubble crash.
Perhaps NVidia has seen the writing on the wall as well, or perhaps they're just hedging their bets with a play on acquiring ARM, but if any of this comes to pass, Intel's discrete GPU business is going to fail massively.
That's why the parasitic 'console' business still exists. 'Consoles' are nothing more than duplicate walled gardens. Linux with OpenGL and Vulkan can come in any form factor, including one that's hand-held and has joysticks that aren't designed to drift.
maybe, but you crying about how much you hate consoles, is any better ? come on. at least give a valid reason why you hate them so much, so far, the only reason you give, is just bs
Since we're repeating ourselves, I challenge you to cite the 'crying' in the following text:
What's not sustainable are the ridiculous prices.
That's why the parasitic 'console' business still exists. 'Consoles' are nothing more than duplicate walled gardens. Linux with OpenGL and Vulkan can come in any form factor, including one that's hand-held and has joysticks that aren't designed to drift.
" That's why the parasitic 'console' business still exists. 'Consoles' are nothing more than duplicate walled gardens. Linux with OpenGL and Vulkan can come in any form factor, including one that's hand-held and has joysticks that aren't designed to drift. "
this whole paragraph and any posts where you whine about consoles. again, its known you hate consoles, for no logical valid reason. all reasons i have seen you post, are just bs. consoles have the place in the gaming space. they are still viable platforms, and allow people to play games with others that is easier then on a comp. i just picked up a switch oled, and its nice, been playing mario kart and mario golf with my family on our 55" tv and its been fun, family time trying to best each other. you have NEVER posted ANYTHING that backs your bs claims about consoles, its just your personal hatred towards them, nothing more. over all, you come across as just an angry person, who is angry at everything, maybe you should change your name to angry oxford guy, would be more fitting to most of your posts.
"I think the era of the discrete GPU may be nearing its end" The era of the GPU is far from over. Apple creating a physically very large SOC to fit integrated graphics on par with discreet graphics signals the biggest risk to Nvidia, not a risk to Intel. If Integrated Graphics and super fast unified memory is the future, a physically larger CPU + integrated Arc is certainly a possibility.
Discreet will still be around for a long time as well for other workloads.
On the shelves in Q1 2022? As long as those shelves aren't in Intel's receiving department after the cards were RMA-ed. I hope they get their drivers copacetic, we could use another major supplier of dGPUs.
This is going to be like the time they buried all those ET cartridges in a landfill in New Mexico.
Intel will ship a bunch of unwanted discrete 'graphics' cards to Dell in Texas. Under cover of night Dell will drive these into Arkansas and landfill them there.
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Arbie - Thursday, October 21, 2021 - link
"It’s easy to see that we’re going ABCD here."Easy for you, maybe.
I've been cringing at "Battlemage" but now have at least a clue, thanks.
PeachNCream - Saturday, October 23, 2021 - link
Drugs - Intel is smoking them.FreckledTrout - Sunday, October 24, 2021 - link
Next is Edward.Spunjji - Monday, October 25, 2021 - link
I hear it in my head in the Unreal Tournament announcer voice.BATTLEMAAAGE!!!
*cringe*
FLORIDAMAN85 - Monday, October 25, 2021 - link
Nvidia jumps Intel with the shotgun: "MY HOUSE!"meacupla - Thursday, October 21, 2021 - link
These look really great on paper, and it's been shown that intel's APU Iris graphics are, in fact, faster than AMD's APU offerings.However, I keep hearing how the graphics driver for Iris is very hit or miss, when it comes to games, and I truly hope Intel will improve their graphics driver by Q1 2022. Intel, past and present, have shown they can write solid, stable, and fast drivers for their controller, and networking chips, so I know what they are capable of.
As for this naming scheme... I guess after Druid, we are going to see Elf, Fairy, Griffin/Goblin, Hobgoblin/Hydra... or something like that
drexnx - Thursday, October 21, 2021 - link
Enchanter?Slash3 - Thursday, October 21, 2021 - link
That's been the most common suggestion, as they've actually taken to Twitter to, uh, to solicit future naming ideas. Might not have planned things out long term. We'll likely be seeing Xe GPU McGPUFace pretty soon.https://twitter.com/IntelGraphics/status/145050527...
AndyTetch - Sunday, October 24, 2021 - link
EnemaFungible/Fructose
Gerp
Harelip
iPlaceHolderName
Jazz-e
Kazzam!
Lazy Lemur
Mmm, dat's nice!
Nah, yeah, nah
Ooh!
PDF (Pretty Darn Fast)
Que qu'est-ce que c'est!
Randy Rodent
Sizzzle
Trinity
Unctuous Lightnight
Vyrtigo
Winsome
X-Treme
Zzz!
Intel had intended to announce the Cremaster Muscle GPU, which had been polling highly as a name amongst the bigwigs, but it descended in popularity and they went instead with the rather limp "Celestial".
I hope this site has an edit feature. This list could be improved.
Spunjji - Monday, October 25, 2021 - link
👍👍👍👍👍bananaforscale - Monday, October 25, 2021 - link
*had, not hasIan Cutress - Thursday, October 21, 2021 - link
ExcelsiorFridge
Germany
Hysteresis
Ion
Jamboree
Kiln
Limonene
Manticore
Nunnery
Opulent
Potatoes
Quiescent
Realist
Science
Tantric
Undulate
Velocity
Weather
XXX
YOLO
Zune
herozeros - Thursday, October 21, 2021 - link
You missed a perfect opportunity to use YYZ.DougMcC - Thursday, October 21, 2021 - link
I can see the marketing now, get thee to a Nunnery(TM)!melgross - Friday, October 22, 2021 - link
No, anything but Zune. I think we’re through with that name.AndyTetch - Sunday, October 24, 2021 - link
EnemaFungible/Fructose
Gerp
Harelip
iPlaceHolderName
Jazz-e
Kazzam!
Lazy Lemur
Mmm, dat's nice!
Nah, yeah, nah
Ooh!
PDF (Pretty Darn Fast)
Que qu'est-ce que c'est!
Randy Rodent
Sizzzle
Trinity
Unctuous Lightnight
Vyrtigo
Winsome
X-Treme
Zzz!
Intel had intended to announce the Cremaster Muscle GPU, which had been polling highly as a name amongst the bigwigs, but it descended in popularity and they went instead with the rather limp "Celestial".
I hope this site has an edit feature. This list could be improved.
AndyTetch - Sunday, October 24, 2021 - link
Oops I forgot Y...Yeah, nah, yeah
This site needs a Delete or Edit post feature.
AndyTetch - Sunday, October 24, 2021 - link
...because Unctuous Lightnight should have been:Unctuous Lightning
AndyTetch - Sunday, October 24, 2021 - link
Could replace Zzz! for ZedI think that Enema is a winner. Promo:
Is your PC unable to spit out those frames like it used to when you're playing games? Your PC needs an Intel Enema! Boy: 'Since I gave my PC an enema, it's spurting out frames like nobody's business!".
Spunjji - Monday, October 25, 2021 - link
"Zune"Truly a winner on which to finish any series
Danvelopment - Friday, October 22, 2021 - link
Depending on how the first four go, there's a good chance Eabod is next.mattbg - Friday, October 22, 2021 - link
It's a great point. I tried AMD exactly once at a point where they were better on paper, and never went back after experiencing their drivers. For better or worse, I don't even look at AMD anymore.KrazyAttack - Friday, October 22, 2021 - link
That seems foolish, their drivers are great.Qasar - Saturday, October 23, 2021 - link
i wonder how long ago this was. i have had issues with both intel AND amd's drivers, neither of them are perfect. my x99 and 5830 are still in use today, and i can't install the newest drivers for the sata ports or network, both have issues stillyeeeeman - Saturday, October 23, 2021 - link
I must agree. AMD does have the upper hand in performance and price right now but their drivers, even for laptops are hit and miss still. Swapped a few months ago my HP with 6700hq and GTX 950m to a Lenovo with 4800h and gtx1650. Right from the get go I had issues with the second monitor, with getting out of sleep being very slow and sometimes just ending up in a blue screen, mouse I being disconnected for no reason...issues that I simply did not have with the previous laptop. Actually with the previous intel laptop and Intel igpu I didn't have any issue really.Spunjji - Monday, October 25, 2021 - link
Normally I'd say you should give them another go, but right now it's not really possible to get hold of *any* modern GPU for reasonable money.StevoLincolnite - Wednesday, November 3, 2021 - link
AMD drivers are fine. It's not the frame pacing era anymore.RSAUser - Monday, November 8, 2021 - link
The issues being that bad haven't existed in over a decade, nowadays I had more issues with Nvidia drivers than AMD ones (RTX 2060 vs my old R9 290 machine).Spunjji - Monday, October 25, 2021 - link
Iris with 96EUs is indeed faster than Vega 8, albeit with an area deficit that's slightly larger than the performance advantage. Vega is now extremely well-optimized in that regard, though.Accounting for the differences between Vega and RDNA 2 and factoring in Intel's claims about performance improvements for Xe-HPG, plus expectations from N6, I think we can infer that Xe-HPG should be a very worthy competitor. It's mostly going to come down to price and availability, though.
Hixbot - Monday, November 1, 2021 - link
While I agree that Intel has solid drivers for other ICs. It's not enough to write a solid GPU driver for a new SKU and leave it there. Patches and bug fixes are not the only concern, GPU drivers benefit from frequent optimization even at the per-game level. This speed of driver updates we have never seen from Intel. Intel will have alot of work ahead of them if they want to keep pace with Nvidia, who often work with Developers ahead of launch to release a "game-ready driver".Showtime - Thursday, October 21, 2021 - link
Great news! Unfortunate for us consumers (and Intel) that they didn't get them out this year, A new player, and slightly less demand than 2021 could make for some actual GPU sales.Oxford Guy - Sunday, October 24, 2021 - link
Hooray for using the same constrained supplier (TSMC). This will help to keep prices inflated, which is wonderful.shabby - Thursday, October 21, 2021 - link
But can Anandtech reaffirm that they'll be reviewing gpu's again? That is the question...powerarmour - Friday, October 22, 2021 - link
They're Intel products, so I assume so.shabby - Friday, October 22, 2021 - link
Doubt, they haven't touched any gpu's since last year.ingwe - Saturday, October 23, 2021 - link
No shabby you are missing that Anandtech is some kind of Intel shill or something. Except when they are an AMD shill. Don't forget their love of apple. It's hard to keep up with who the paranoid users here suppose Anandtech is shilling.shabby - Saturday, October 23, 2021 - link
I understand, but there's no way Ryan will review intels gpu before ampere and amd's gpu's. However if he does then yes, 100% paid by intel to review it.Lonyo - Saturday, October 23, 2021 - link
In response to a question on the 6600 release news piece they said they would, but I don't think anyone believes them.Silver5urfer - Thursday, October 21, 2021 - link
With their garbage drivers and their questionable performance with Raja hype on top of the Apple claiming 2080 class GPU performance this garbage which is rumored at RDNA1 and Turing performance is going to be a massive DOA disaster.Intel should stop poking their eyes and start seeing what they do best and keep doing that. They wasted a ton of cash on all those bs projects and they sold that 5G business to Apple for peanuts and now GPU market. While CPU business is in shambles.
michael2k - Friday, October 22, 2021 - link
What exactly do they do best? It’s no longer process, that is TSMC. It’s no longer CPU, because without process they’ve fallen behind AMD and Apple.I think this is the problem they are trying to solve.
TheJian - Friday, October 22, 2021 - link
6.8B net massively up from last Q and YoY. They are best at making INCOME, even in tough times, while eventually winning either way.. Net income is needed to do that, and that is what Intel does well. You have options as the guy making piles of net income, such as buying the other guys needed wafers. Buy every wafer you can that AMD/NV/Apple need on the best nodes and make a mint on them. Gpus at worst if you can't sell enough to use all the wafers on server/hedt. It's easy for Intel to waste tons of wafers and still make money on them while severely limiting AMD/NV etc.Do it until you take their gpu income to zero, while recovering cpu. Mess with apples launches as much as you can also while doing it of course, with the intent of bankrupting both amd/nv or buying them, then ruining TSMC/apple. Just write bigger checks and get it done. As long as you're profiting while limiting their ability to produce (or make NET income) you win. Pat appears to be doing just that. Good work. Intel is run by brains now, not marketing BS. AMD has already lost IMHO, but NV/apple and TSMC a bit more tricky perhaps. You have to Kill AMD/NV (as much as possible that is, kill their income) just as TSMC is ramping up all the new fabs. Then see if TSMC can replace two large customers just as new fabs are needing customers and Intel is fabbing as much as possible for others too. Any TSMC customer you can't destroy, steal. :) Business is war ;)
Qasar - Friday, October 22, 2021 - link
blah blah blah i love intel.. intel is the best.. blah blah blahmore bs rambles from the jian... * yawn *
t.s - Friday, October 22, 2021 - link
His point is solid. Almost all who follow CPU tech news with half a brain know about this.Qasar - Friday, October 22, 2021 - link
you obviously have not seen his other posts. solid or not.. it just anothet anti amd rantname99 - Friday, October 22, 2021 - link
No. His point boils down to "TODAY most of the buyers of Intel don't have good alternatives".That's true, but the point of everyone else is that that is not a consequence of Intel's actions but of history.
- It certainly seems likely that ever more of the data center business will move to ARM. Graviton1 was just sad -- but helped AMZ learn. Graviton2 is good enough to match Intel for many workloads, even though it's still just not very good. Graviton3 powered by N2 should be very scary to Intel.
Meanwhile if you're not AMZ or an AWS user, we have Alibaba doing their thing. We have mutterings and rumors about MS, Google, Facebook going down the Alibaba path. We have Ampere there if you just want to buy a chip.
- How large can Apple grow in the laptop/PC space? Of course there are people who will never buy an Apple PC/laptop for whatever reason, and there are "technical" use cases (controlling signage, PC's used in labs, specialty medical progams, etc) that Apple has no interest in.
But for the generic user who just doesn't care much? Yes, Apple are expensive today (or, more precisely, they do not sell anything at the lowest end). Will that always be the case? Consider how (once they had total control) they grew the iPhone and iPad prices ranges from the lowest end (two year old iPhone, and iPad using two year old chips) to the highest end Pro versions. Why couldn't, and wouldn't, they do that with Macs? I remember the days were Macs were 3 to 5% of PCs. Now they are about 16% in the US. Already that's a non-neglible hit to INTC, but I see no intrinsic reason that couldn't grow to maybe 30% or more, and to grow in other countries.
Right now Apple are kinda letting Asahi Linux do their thing, but they aren't stopping them, and they have explicitly said that it's MS' choice whether they want to put Windows on Macs. When they care, they could push on both those markets -- work to "encourage" MS, work to help Linux if they need help (cf their recent Blender work). Right now they don't need to do that, and they are probably happy to have more flexibility to change things substantially over the next few years as they find their way. But in five years?
Even those technical markets... Used to be that if a PC was being used as a cash register, it was a Wintel PC. Now it's most likely to be some sort of iPad (or even iPhone) using Square or something similar. Things change...
I'm old enough to remember five years ago, when wise experienced people told me it was simply stupid to imagine that Apple could maintain their CPU performance growth to ever hit desktop levels. And those same wise experience people told me that ARM was delusional with their projections of starting to move into the data center seriously in 2020.
You can look at those past projections and insist on trivial details like "oh, ARM was off by two years".
Or you can look at those past projections, look at today, appreciate how much things have changed, and ask why the trajectory going forward will be different.
We know the ARM trajectory, we know what they plan going forward, those of us who *actually* understand something of the technology know they track they are on (both as ARM and as Apple). Meanwhile the Intel trajectory remains more of the same -- extravagant promises, gorgeous slides, followed by sad disillusion as each new product is actually benchmarked.
[ Yes yes, we know, that all changes with Alder Lake (or maybe Meteor Lake, or maybe the change happens with Raptor Lake?) ]
That's the point, that's what the sellers are seeing. Stronger competition for Intel (and x86) than ever before, along with no especially compelling response by Intel.
It will take years, yes, but let's check again in 2025...
Spunjji - Monday, October 25, 2021 - link
The point about the technical market is a good one - I think a lot of commentators on tech sites don't fully appreciate the extent to which Apple have been building themselves a market from unexpected directions. Use of iPads as PoS is something I'd have never predicted, but you see them all over the place in businesses both large and small.The release of a lower-end cut-price MacBook based on leftover M1 chips (or some derivative) a year or two from now also seems like a strong likelihood.
melgross - Friday, October 22, 2021 - link
True.Spunjji - Monday, October 25, 2021 - link
It's really not. A larger company buying itself out of trouble isn't a penetrating insight, and "business is war" is a puerile take. Intel currently being large and having the financial clout to weather a storm isn't a definitive indicator of future success (see: IBM), the idea of them being able to bully Apple out of the market by overpaying for wafers is laughable, and the idea that TSMC will collaborate with Intel to destroy most of its own customers is even more absurd.TheJian just likes to say silly things with an unwarranted air of confidence. It's his Thing.
michael2k - Saturday, October 23, 2021 - link
You realize Apple is already doing this right? Apple’s revenue last quarter was $83b, which dwarf’s Intel’s revenue.Apple is already locking customers out of TSMC’s best process nodes and Intel has been stated as wanting Apple’s business as a foundry; which implies they don’t have enough business on their own to lock out Apple, let alone Apple and NVIDA and AMD
Spunjji - Monday, October 25, 2021 - link
You have the attitude of a child.Spunjji - Monday, October 25, 2021 - link
RDNA 1 and Turing performance with N6 power characteristics would be fine and dandy, TBH, if the price is right. I'm expecting something a little better, though, with some caveats for driver quirks on release.lightningz71 - Friday, October 22, 2021 - link
Intel has a LOT to prove with respect to their willingness to support these dumpster fire's of branding with long term driver support. We've been burned by Intel abandoning video drivers in the past (not to say that AMD or Nvidia is completely innocent here, but, for most everything, you've gotten at least three good years of support at the very least) and even recently with walking away from any support for KadyLake-G as well as abandoning certain Atom based products in the past within 6 months of release. I'm not going to plunk down one glowing red cent on an intel video product at today's over inflated purchase prices for several years until they can prove a few things:1) They can fix a lot of the bugs in the existing Xe driver for Tiger Lake
2) They can support one of these cards with continually improving drivers for at least 24 months
3) They can produce enough cards to be relevant to the market and have game designers on board to properly support their cards oddities.
cyrusfox - Friday, October 22, 2021 - link
You mean the kaby lake driver that was updated last month...https://www.reddit.com/r/intel/comments/ps4mse/new...
If anything Intel has the best driver support (Windows, Linux,Patched monthly with open support). It also has the most market exposure to bugs as their integrated GPU vastly outnumbering the discrete cards on the market. Software and driver support has always been an Intel strength. With every CPU that is Rocket/Tiger lake and newer coming with an Xe flavor iGPU, they have been working on optimizing for this new GPU archetecture for the last 18 months, excellerated that work by sending free DG1 cards to devs to give them an opportunity to ensure the dev's work will function on the swath of iGPU coming with Xe.
But Software and driver support in a dry GPU market really is a secondary concern.
Main issue is supply, if Nvidia and AMD GPUs are still 2x MSRP, Intel can win by simplying supply the amrket at MSRP at a rate they don't sell out.
Flying Aardvark - Friday, October 22, 2021 - link
I'm buying one of these. Never caught a fair price on a 3000 series card. Given I have a decent iGPU (I use an 11900K) capable of 720P gaming on its own, and Intel's iGPU and dGPU will share compute, I'm expecting pretty decent outcome as an upgrade over my 1060FE.Spunjji - Monday, October 25, 2021 - link
The 11900K iGPU is pretty poor - it's barely faster than the HD stuff on Comet Lake. It's certainly not going to be a meaningful factor in performance in combination with a Xe-HPG GPU.sharath.naik - Friday, October 22, 2021 - link
What I want from intel is an equivalent for the M1 chip to have a laptop without discrete GPU that can game like having 3080 in it. under 60watts. M1 has already proved that GPU having a separate memory has a huge power and performance penalty.michael2k - Friday, October 22, 2021 - link
They really can't do that since they are stuck at the equivalent of 7nm right now. That would put them at the same as an Apple A13 on 7nm. If you tried to manufacture an M1M, with it's 55b transistors, at 7nm you would have an 86W part. That and it would be 550 square mm or 5.5 square cm, at best. AMD's threadripper totals 24b transistors and 7.12 square cm of silicon, so it's possible that Intel's version of the M1P would be closer to 15 square cm.name99 - Friday, October 22, 2021 - link
Do we have any good comparisons as to the "quality" of the existing Xe iGPU's?Something that tries, at a technical rather than a tribal level, to match them against Apple, AMD, and nV.
Obviously each company has a different situation, but one can at least try to look at things like
"performance" per watt or per sq mm, and see if there are substantial differences; of if there are certain important and interesting tasks for which one is substantially more (or less) performant than the other.
Spunjji - Monday, October 25, 2021 - link
The Xe iGPU has perf/mm that's pretty close to Vega 8 on TSMC 7nm - it's about 33% larger and 25% faster, on average. I don't really know how that compares to Nvidia as they haven't released anything that low in the performance range since Pascal.Drivers and system design have been the main impediment to its success as a low-end gaming chip - the difference between Xe performing at its best and worst is nearly 50%.
Sahrin - Friday, October 22, 2021 - link
Their CPU's have been on the shelves since ~1970 but have only been worth buying half the time.Farfolomew - Saturday, October 23, 2021 - link
I've got a feeling this is going to be one of Intel's bigger blunders of recent memory. There's such a giant bubble in the discrete GPU industry that it's bound to pop sooner than later. The current market is not sustainable one bit by the gaming industry. They're losing PC gamers by troves because of the high prices, and combined with the lessening of the Pandemic, I think PC gaming will be in decline. Also, add to the paradigm shift in SoC design Apple has demonstrated, I think the era of the discrete GPU may be nearing its end, and won't be able to easily recover this next bubble crash.Perhaps NVidia has seen the writing on the wall as well, or perhaps they're just hedging their bets with a play on acquiring ARM, but if any of this comes to pass, Intel's discrete GPU business is going to fail massively.
Farfolomew - Saturday, October 23, 2021 - link
*droves. I should have proofread that, LOL. Oh well, that's what I get for posting on AT's archaic comment section.Oxford Guy - Sunday, October 24, 2021 - link
What's not sustainable are the ridiculous prices.That's why the parasitic 'console' business still exists. 'Consoles' are nothing more than duplicate walled gardens. Linux with OpenGL and Vulkan can come in any form factor, including one that's hand-held and has joysticks that aren't designed to drift.
Qasar - Monday, October 25, 2021 - link
ok, some of us get it, you HATE consoles, stop crying about them already. its getting oldOxford Guy - Monday, October 25, 2021 - link
Ad hominem is not a useful response.Qasar - Tuesday, October 26, 2021 - link
maybe, but you crying about how much you hate consoles, is any better ? come on. at least give a valid reason why you hate them so much, so far, the only reason you give, is just bsOxford Guy - Friday, October 29, 2021 - link
'maybe'Bzzt.
'but you crying'
And... we're right back to the same ad hom.
Oxford Guy - Friday, October 29, 2021 - link
Since we're repeating ourselves, I challenge you to cite the 'crying' in the following text:What's not sustainable are the ridiculous prices.
That's why the parasitic 'console' business still exists. 'Consoles' are nothing more than duplicate walled gardens. Linux with OpenGL and Vulkan can come in any form factor, including one that's hand-held and has joysticks that aren't designed to drift.
Qasar - Friday, October 29, 2021 - link
" That's why the parasitic 'console' business still exists. 'Consoles' are nothing more than duplicate walled gardens. Linux with OpenGL and Vulkan can come in any form factor, including one that's hand-held and has joysticks that aren't designed to drift. "this whole paragraph and any posts where you whine about consoles. again, its known you hate consoles, for no logical valid reason. all reasons i have seen you post, are just bs. consoles have the place in the gaming space. they are still viable platforms, and allow people to play games with others that is easier then on a comp. i just picked up a switch oled, and its nice, been playing mario kart and mario golf with my family on our 55" tv and its been fun, family time trying to best each other. you have NEVER posted ANYTHING that backs your bs claims about consoles, its just your personal hatred towards them, nothing more. over all, you come across as just an angry person, who is angry at everything, maybe you should change your name to angry oxford guy, would be more fitting to most of your posts.
kwohlt - Monday, October 25, 2021 - link
"I think the era of the discrete GPU may be nearing its end"The era of the GPU is far from over. Apple creating a physically very large SOC to fit integrated graphics on par with discreet graphics signals the biggest risk to Nvidia, not a risk to Intel. If Integrated Graphics and super fast unified memory is the future, a physically larger CPU + integrated Arc is certainly a possibility.
Discreet will still be around for a long time as well for other workloads.
FLORIDAMAN85 - Monday, October 25, 2021 - link
I came here for the cancerous vitriol and wasn't disappointed.eastcoast_pete - Tuesday, October 26, 2021 - link
On the shelves in Q1 2022? As long as those shelves aren't in Intel's receiving department after the cards were RMA-ed. I hope they get their drivers copacetic, we could use another major supplier of dGPUs.PaulHoule - Wednesday, November 3, 2021 - link
This is going to be like the time they buried all those ET cartridges in a landfill in New Mexico.Intel will ship a bunch of unwanted discrete 'graphics' cards to Dell in Texas. Under cover of night Dell will drive these into Arkansas and landfill them there.
Flunk - Wednesday, November 3, 2021 - link
Is it weird that I both suspect this will fail and hope it won't?lov123 - Thursday, November 4, 2021 - link
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