News Intel GPUs - Battlemage officially announced, evidently not cancelled

[moonbogg]

Intel teases desktop Arc A-Series Limited Edition graphics card - VideoCardz.com

Intel Arc desktop GPU showcased The desktop Arc A-Series graphics cards might not be ready for launch yet, but the company is actually ready to show off the design. The dual-fan and dual-slot Arc Alchemist desktop GPU has been showcased for the first time through a teaser video posted by Intel...

videocardz.com

$599?

I don't think anyone would want it for that price. They'd buy something else most likely. I think $300-ish makes more sense. Intel has to charge traditional, sane prices for a mid range product IMO. They can't get away with charging enthusiast money for a 3070-ish performing card. They have to go the Ryzen route if they want to disrupt and enter this market by offering tons of value to reel people in like Ryzen did. Otherwise it will never get off the ground except for in laptops.

 

[blckgrffn]

I don't think anyone would want it for that price. They'd buy something else most likely. I think $300-ish makes more sense.

Does it makes sense to sell a 16GB card for anything less than ~$500 though? Intel is going to want to make margin on this non-Intel silicon too, as they can't justify volume as a way to use/pay for their own fabs even if per unit margins are meh.

 

[moonbogg]

Does it makes sense to sell a 16GB card for anything less than ~$500 though? Intel is going to want to make margin on this non-Intel silicon too, as they can't justify volume as a way to use/pay for their own fabs even if per unit margins are meh.

It doesn't matter what they want. It only matters what people will buy and consider relevant. They may have to take a loss to make their way into the DGPU space in any meaningful way. I wouldn't touch it for $600, lol. Not a chance in hell.

 

[Glo.]

G11 managed to keep all the extras vs the 141mm2 6500XT at seeming minimal die size increase - but does it do 3D better? Should be interesting to find out!

N24 is 107 mm2, not 141 mm2.

 

[Glo.]

I don't think anyone would want it for that price. They'd buy something else most likely. I think $300-ish makes more sense. Intel has to charge traditional, sane prices for a mid range product IMO. They can't get away with charging enthusiast money for a 3070-ish performing card. They have to go the Ryzen route if they want to disrupt and enter this market by offering tons of value to reel people in like Ryzen did. Otherwise it will never get off the ground except for in laptops.

Marketing is what drives today's companies.

If there is A780 SKU - its going to compete with 3070, and will be priced accordingly.

If there is A580 SKU - its going to compete with 3050 Ti on desktop, assuming 3050 Ti exists, and will be priced accordingly.

 

[moonbogg]

Marketing is what drives today's companies.

If there is A780 SKU - its going to compete with 3070, and will be priced accordingly.

If there is A580 SKU - its going to compete with 3050 Ti on desktop, assuming 3050 Ti exists, and will be priced accordingly.

If the only thing that mattered was FPS then sure, but people want their card to actually work. If there are compromises, issues, or lacking features that take away from the whole package then they can't charge top dollar based on relative FPS numbers. Well, perhaps you're right and they will charge it, but how will that go over? If this thing isn't up to snuff and they charge the same as Nvidia it will get torn apart in reviews and look really bad. But hey, let them charge a high price. I always enjoy an entertaining product review. Drama is fun.

 

[ultimatebob]

It doesn't matter what they want. It only matters what people will buy and consider relevant. They may have to take a loss to make their way into the DGPU space in any meaningful way. I wouldn't touch it for $600, lol. Not a chance in hell.

Yeah, I would personally expect a 20% discount over comparable Intel and AMD products, knowing that you're basically going to be an unpaid beta tester for their drivers.

 

[Karnak]

Really Intel, no HDMI 2.1?

 

[igor_kavinski]

Intel is expecting to gain followers for their various features like XeSS, Smooth Sync etc. They are betting on these to sell their first few million cards because their real halo product sporting the 16 pin connector will probably come next year. Hard for them to get stuck with unsold inventory coz people in third world countries have blind faith in the Intel brand. My IT guy just got Comet Lake NUCs to use somewhere in the company. People like him will keep Intel thriving.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

Does it makes sense to sell a 16GB card for anything less than ~$500 though? Intel is going to want to make margin on this non-Intel silicon too, as they can't justify volume as a way to use/pay for their own fabs even if per unit margins are meh.

Marketing is what drives today's companies.

If there is A780 SKU - its going to compete with 3070, and will be priced accordingly.

If there is A580 SKU - its going to compete with 3050 Ti on desktop, assuming 3050 Ti exists, and will be priced accordingly.

- If a NV card and AMD card are both priced @ $500 with similar performance and specs, what are people going to buy? They'll buy NV 8 times out of 10. And that's with AMD as an entrenched player in the GPU space.

The brand has to factor into the value of the product. AMD has demonstrated with Zen that Intel's brand is far from insurmountable, and Intel is basically a nobody in the GPU space and they're effectively building their drivers from scratch.

I will throw Intel a bone here through: Launching a very limited run part for $500 is essentially building in the scarcity into the price. Intel is essentially saying "this is a $300 GPU, but we're making so few of them for desktops that we're confident we can sell the 100K that actually make it to that channel for $200 more than what we know it would be worth apples to apples in the open market".

 

[blckgrffn]

That and as @igor_kavinski said, there will be those who buy Intel because Intel. They've probably always dismissed buying AMD and now that they can just buy all Intel, so much the better. I think Intel still has a lot of brand power.

That, and a year or so from now there will be so many ARC/Xe graphics "cards" out there that they are going to force themselves into relevance to game engines and tool chains.

Based on how many PCs are set to age out in the next two years, there could be a lot of turn over. It's built into laptop turnover, but many folks will also just recycle a full PC too, even if they are going to be ditching a capable nvidia/amd card in the process.

The PC building community is what it is, but the real war will be in the OEM space. HP/Dell/Lenovo have been selling PCs with Intel graphics in them for many years and this might let them further consolidate.

Yeah, I am still in the "prove it!" phase of acceptance with regards to their drivers too but look forward to a Zen 3+ or Intel 12th gen laptop this fall and would prefer a setup with a dedicated framebuffer.

 

[Glo.]

Let me put plainly what I think will happen:

A380, 65W, 6 GB VRAM, GTX 1650 Super-GTX 1660 performance for 179$.
A580 - RTX 2060 performance, 8 GB VRAM, up to 125W TDP, for 249$.

Something like this is what I think will happen on higher end, as well.

Are such perf/$ tiers bad deal?

 

[VirtualLarry]

Based on how many PCs are set to age out in the next two years, there could be a lot of turn over. It's built into laptop turnover, but many folks will also just recycle a full PC too, even if they are going to be ditching a capable nvidia/amd card in the process.

I think a lot of Skylake / 7700K rigs are going to be put out to pasture soon, if not already, replaced by a shiny new 12th-Gen 'K" CPU rig, if they are an Intel fan, or possibly a 5800X3D, if they are willing to try AMD - as soon as corresponding GPU prices return to Earth.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

I think a lot of Skylake / 7700K rigs are going to be put out to pasture soon, if not already, replaced by a shiny new 12th-Gen 'K" CPU rig, if they are an Intel fan, or possibly a 5800X3D, if they are willing to try AMD - as soon as corresponding GPU prices return to Earth.

- That is exactly my situation, my 6600K is basically comparable to a modern Celeron. But you couldn't pay me to use Intel's first release as my daily driver. Next build is either all AMD, or AMD CPU + NV GPU.

 

[blckgrffn]

- That is exactly my situation, my 6600K is basically comparable to a modern Celeron. But you couldn't pay me to use Intel's first release as my daily driver. Next build is either all AMD, or AMD CPU + NV GPU.

Hey, there are going to be millions/tens of millions of guinea pigs by the end of the year, maybe? They'll get their software sorted quick or burn.

 

[Asterox]

That is absurdly low GPU frequency=TDP , if we put in comparison with AMD Mobile 6000 series APU-s.

 

[linkgoron]

I think a lot of Skylake / 7700K rigs are going to be put out to pasture soon, if not already, replaced by a shiny new 12th-Gen 'K" CPU rig, if they are an Intel fan, or possibly a 5800X3D, if they are willing to try AMD - as soon as corresponding GPU prices return to Earth.

I don't see a lot of skylake/kabylake users buying into a dead-end platform like AM4. If they've already waited this long, I don't see them rushing into AM4. IMO Either buy Intel now, or wait for AM5.

 

[moonbogg]

Let me put plainly what I think will happen:

A380, 65W, 6 GB VRAM, GTX 1650 Super-GTX 1660 performance for 179$.
A580 - RTX 2060 performance, 8 GB VRAM, up to 125W TDP, for 249$.

Something like this is what I think will happen on higher end, as well.

Are such perf/$ tiers bad deal?

I bought 1660 supers for $250 like 2 years ago or something. Releasing something less powerful for a little less money now is not great. My prediction is that these Intel cards will be very underwhelming and the only thing worth note about them will be the cheap price. Even then, if the GPU market returns to health there may be better options available for a similar price. I'm not going to lie or fudge about here, I think this will be a rough launch for Intel. I think their cards are going to suck and no one will want them.
Additionally, Nvidia is ruthless. I've seen them counterpunch the competition so hard it's not even funny. 1080Ti vs Vega? Good god. They can pull something like that out of their hat at the mid range and make everyone on earth completely forget that intel even launched a GPU. They can launch a 4060 for $350 which would be the equivalent of nuking Intel from space. A 4060 at a price like that would be so good, Intel would take years to catch it, by which time it wouldn't matter anyway because here comes the refreshes.

 

[blckgrffn]

@Asterox

Your slide really confused me, because I had been looking at this one:



Using that arrow, I could have viewed the slide you quoted. I assumed that because they were based the "i3" version of their GPUs on G11 that there would be a 96 bit memory version available. Evidently this is an "up to" situation where we may or may not ever see a 96 bit mobile GPU. For whatever reason I though the upper end of the current launch would feature this. Bummer.

Seems like maybe we'll get a 6 GB 75W desktop variant though, in a select econobox coming to a e-retailer near you soon!

 

[Panino Manino]

I miss Ian already.
But now Anandtech would have a lengthy deep dive. Those were good not because of their size, but because it always made easier to dumb people like me to understand.
I know that there are other people here but even so the site is understaffed.

 

[psolord]

Additionally, Nvidia is ruthless. I've seen them counterpunch the competition so hard it's not even funny. 1080Ti vs Vega? Good god. They can pull something like that out of their hat at the mid range and make everyone on earth completely forget that intel even launched a GPU. They can launch a 4060 for $350 which would be the equivalent of nuking Intel from space. A 4060 at a price like that would be so good, Intel would take years to catch it, by which time it wouldn't matter anyway because here comes the refreshes.

Sir, can you please make up your mind? Will the 4060 be 1000$ or 350$. I cannot stand this emotional roller coaster any more! xD

 

[Tup3x]

That is absurdly low GPU frequency=TDP , if we put in comparison with AMD Mobile 6000 series APU-s.

View attachment 59359

View attachment 59360

Those are for lowest possible TDP. High TDP versions have higher clocks.

 

[IntelUser2000]

I find it interesting and even a bit funny with the mood swings of the general public. Expecting Intel to be a hero at one point, but suddenly AMD/Nvidia will come out of nowhere drop price to 2006 levels.

It's really, really difficult to be exceptional, that's why it's called exceptional! Intel releasing exactly at the time when GPU price are dropping quickly is just in line with trend. We do things knowingly/unknowingly with the trend of the world, and it takes an exceptional circumstance and/or individual to go against it.

I always knew the middle ground to be the truth. Intel will need to fight hard and stick with it. Relying purely on price is a losing proposition because established competition can do it for a short time to kick you out, then you are done. If they have a good product then people will buy it. And I realize it'll need hard, sustained work on their part.

$500 is sufficient enough for a first generation that lays the foundation, if they can continue to execute and move up the ladder as they say they are going to do. Note what the alternative is. They decide to lose money on every product and sell the A770 for $350. Then you end up with the same result as Contra Revenue and mobile - they lose money and in couple of years quit. No, even if the volumes are lower, you sell it to profit a bit.

If they don't have a good product, no OEM kickbacks are going to help. It can for a short time but I guarantee you as a long time strategy it'll fail. Market has a time delay but always catches up, and is roughly logical.

While it's easy to think that Intel is a big company and can simply bully their way through the market, in actuality bigger companies have greater ambitions and in their viewpoint fail as readily as if they were say, a startup. Historically Intel gives up really easily. We'll see if they even make it to Celestial. If they do stick and succeed though, no doubt Nvidia will be the biggest loser here.

That is absurdly low GPU frequency=TDP , if we put in comparison with AMD Mobile 6000 series APU-s.

That's peak frequency, while for ARC it's frequency while gaming at the lowest rated TDP.

In reality dGPUs tend to be faster than iGPUs while also using a bit more power as well. That's the nature of things. Nothing new.

 

[mikk]

A350M 3dmark results.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1509471689926582275

 

[uzzi38]

A350M 3dmark results.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1509471689926582275

Here's some Rembrandt numbers as a comparison too