News Intel GPUs - Falcon Shores cancelled

[maddie]

This seems like exactly what they are doing.

Ashraf has been spot on with his information. He had genuine sources. And while I felt that he liked Intel, he also didn't shy away from telling the truth about the company.

I hate to say this, but maybe he was "bought out" by Intel. You can see in the tech world, top journalists have been sent to work at many corporations.

When it comes to morality, vast majority of people tread the grey area. If they are given enough financial incentives, they will likely say "Oh I deserve a break, what the hell" and take it.

Smoking out sources?

The next few years will be potentially horrific for Intel and their stock value. Narrative control is essential for them to minimize the now inevitable contraction.

Will be interesting to see it play out.

 

[IntelUser2000]

By the way, they are not alone in doing this. I wouldn't be surprised if its the majority.

When foundation of confidence for our society is built on shady tactics, flashy advertisements, and shock value, that's when you realize we are really in trouble.

 

[maddie]

By the way, they are not alone in doing this. I wouldn't be surprised if its the majority.

When foundation of confidence for our society is built on shady tactics, flashy advertisements, and shock value, that's when you realize we are really in trouble.

And what do the smart people do?

 

[coercitiv]

Has anyone considered Ashraf might be genuinely interested in both the experience of working in a top semiconductor company and joining a team set to develop an arguably exciting new product? Out of all the moments one can start working in the industry this must be one of the most rewarding, especially for someone who spent most of his career watching everyone's move from the sides.

We out of all people should understand this, after all we too spend a considerable part of our free time analyzing the industry purely for fun.

There will be lots of time to blame Intel for everything if they botch their dGPU debut anyway.

 

[maddie]

Has anyone considered Ashraf might be genuinely interested in both the experience of working in a top semiconductor company and joining a team set to develop an arguably exciting new product? Out of all the moments one can start working in the industry this must be one of the most rewarding, especially for someone who spent most of his career watching everyone's move from the sides.

We out of all people should understand this, after all we too spend a considerable part of our free time analyzing the industry purely for fun.

There will be lots of time to blame Intel for everything if they botch their dGPU debut anyway.

Is his reasons being analyzed, or Intel's? I'm sure that both have different valid reasons and in each ones best interest. A good freemarket trade.

 

[coercitiv]

Is his reasons being analyzed, or Intel's? I'm sure that both have different valid reasons and in each ones best interest. A good freemarket trade.

We both know this discussion indirectly reflects on him too, not just Intel. There were many occasions when I didn't agree with his view of the industry, but I definitely wouldn't indulge myself into looking at this move from such a narrow conspiracy pinhole.

 

[darkswordsman17]

Its based on the contract they signed when they were hired. MOST companies will have it in the contract, that should they be terminated, they are NOT to reveal any company confidential material. That material is marked as such.

The thing is, I'm not sure how much AMD can do about it, if they have a licensing deal for IP with Intel (which I believe they do in GPUs, I know Intel does with Nvidia, I thought AMD and Intel worked another one as part of a deal on x86 licensing but its hard to keep up with all of that type of stuff). Frankly, it might actually even benefit AMD if Raja were to heavily base their GPU around similar ideas, as think if Intel and AMD shared fairly similar GPU architectures, it would help them both against Nvidia (who has the marketshare right now, both are chasing). I've actually been somewhat waiting for an announcement along those lines, as I think it makes quite a bit of sense (helps Intel adapt to the market quickly, helps AMD gain software development and gives developers more reason to target their stuff; and I'd guess both will be rapidly advancing new graphics architectures due to changes in the market and the need to adopt new things like APUs and mGPU where the chips need to be coherent across both). And if Nvidia makes a fuss, they can possibly make the argument that adopting a more standard base architecture is beneficial due to the software development being so complex (and that being where most of the differentiation in the computing industry is), especially as gains from the manufacturing processes become harder to come by.

No. Look at the Google vs Uber lawsuits. No engineer or company wants to be in that position.

Er, I take it you didn't pay attention to how that case worked out then? The engineer in question made, IIRC, millions (maybe tens or even hundreds of millions, since he formed a startup after leaving Waymo, which Uber bought for $680million not long after - and there's almost certainly no way the guy had accrued $680 million in assets that quickly so Uber was paying mostly for him and his knowledge knowing it was based on Waymo technology), and Uber settled for like $200-300million in stock (meaning, Google is vested in Uber doing well, so its in their interest not to make them pay). Uber likely gained hundreds of millions of dollars worth of knowledge from that situation (so they really probably didn't lose anything), even if they don't use any of Waymo's software or hardware, just the knowledge of Google/Waymo's plans gives Uber a competitive advantage. The knowledge of how much farther ahead Waymo is likely saved them billions that they were planning on developing their own stuff (hence them chasing shortcut by hiring the guy in the first place), which now they'll focus on using their data mining as their advantage and let others chase the hard stuff. Their CEO actually even admitted that had been their plan (Google would do the development of the autonomous vehicle tech, while Uber did the app and associated data; they got scared when hearing rumors that Google was doing their own ridesharing service).

This seems like exactly what they are doing.

Ashraf has been spot on with his information. He had genuine sources. And while I felt that he liked Intel, he also didn't shy away from telling the truth about the company.

I hate to say this, but maybe he was "bought out" by Intel. You can see in the tech world, top journalists have been sent to work at many corporations.

When it comes to morality, vast majority of people tread the grey area. If they are given enough financial incentives, they will likely say "Oh I deserve a break, what the hell" and take it.

Eh, I think its very likely that they recognized the guy's ability to understand the market and saw it as an asset, as Intel has had some very well known blunders where they chased markets that they didn't understand and wasted billions to have nothing to show for it because of their ignorance of the market (and belief that they could dominate it just because they were Intel). Raja arguably had similar problems at AMD, where they didn't know how to market products. Plus, let's not forget they're really going up against Nvidia who has been leveraging marketing as major factor in their success, so simply being able to understand the marketing games and how to get people to see beyond them would be almost necessary. AMD hasn't been able to.

The proof will be in the pudding, so I'm not sure how you people think he could help gloss over much if Intel's performance (in any measure, be it perf/W, perf/$) is lackluster. Plus just look at threads like this and others about Intel GPU, they clearly will need to do a lot to gain confidence in their GPU division, that even decent performance alone won't fix.

 

[maddie]

We both know this discussion indirectly reflects on him too, not just Intel. There were many occasions when I didn't agree with his view of the industry, but I definitely wouldn't indulge myself into looking at this move from such a narrow conspiracy pinhole.

Actually I didn't know this.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Didn't Intel hire the guy that started PCPer (PC Perspective) too, some time ago?

 

[Dayman1225]

Didn't Intel hire the guy that started PCPer (PC Perspective) too, some time ago?

They hired Allyn (SSD Guy) Ryan Shrout (Owner) and Ken Addison (CPU review guy) from PCPer

 

[railven]

On the one hand, kudos to the guys that got into the industry through their hobby-turned-career moves. On the other, the optics looks bad for Intel when you're buying "press" people.

I've lost a lot of faith in what I read online now. Everyone is "paid" for in their own way. Throw in the age of clickbait, and you'll see "next thing since slice bread" video/article followed by a "find out why it's a total failure" nonsense.

Eitherway, with the growth of the internet, these companies can't hide their secrets for very long. Whistle blowers and disgruntled employees be "leaking" everything anyways. Swing by any forum, and you'll find plenty of "I have it/I've seen it/I heard it from reliable source" posters. It's kind of crazy, haha. Back to cave.

 

[DrMrLordX]

On the other, the optics looks bad for Intel when you're buying "press" people.

The only way I see this as making their product better is that, at the moment of hire, Intel gets a lot of frank "this is why your products stink" advice. After that, the reviewers/hobbyist reporter people are mostly useless. And few/none of them show up later as community liaisons for Intel. What's the point, really?

I can understand the Raja hire (I guess) for dGPU work. If, you know, they were really in the Raja Koduri Fanclub (tm). And Keller was obvious, though I doubt he'll have anything to do with Xe. Everyone else? Ehhhh.

 

[railven]

The only way I see this as making their product better is that, at the moment of hire, Intel gets a lot of frank "this is why your products stink" advice. After that, the reviewers/hobbyist reporter people are mostly useless. And few/none of them show up later as community liaisons for Intel. What's the point, really?

That's assuming you got yourself a person with a backbone. Wife's employer hired a contractor that was extremely critical of their work process. Once hired, became the biggest "yes" man I can think of. Don't want to rock the boat, I guess.

I can understand the Raja hire (I guess) for dGPU work. If, you know, they were really in the Raja Koduri Fanclub (tm). And Keller was obvious, though I doubt he'll have anything to do with Xe. Everyone else? Ehhhh.

Engineers, I get. Engineers from rival companies, sure. Press people and marketing? No offense to AMD, but I'd never take any of their marketing people. I mentioned something to my wife that made me realize it was a marketing tactic (she works in sales, PM). This article to me made no real sense to me, then as she said "they want you to keep thinking about them." It worked.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/1411...ntrol-panel-the-intel-graphics-command-center

 

[DrMrLordX]

That's assuming you got yourself a person with a backbone. Wife's employer hired a contractor that was extremely critical of their work process. Once hired, became the biggest "yes" man I can think of. Don't want to rock the boat, I guess.

It's one thing to hire a contractor to work within a work process. It's another to hire someone to help change it. Without a little backbone, hires like Ashraf make no sense. He won't do the company any good unless he can say, "okay, this is the part of the roadmap where I see you getting hurt, badly, and here's why". Because that's the kind of analysis people expected from him before he was hired.

 

[railven]

It's one thing to hire a contractor to work within a work process. It's another to hire someone to help change it. Without a little backbone, hires like Ashraf make no sense. He won't do the company any good unless he can say, "okay, this is the part of the roadmap where I see you getting hurt, badly, and here's why". Because that's the kind of analysis people expected from him before he was hired.

Yeah, definitely. It would suck if these guys squander these opportunities. I've come across too many "employers" who don't want to listen to fresh ideas due to ego. Intel is the definition of ego. And I hope these "press" guys don't get pushed around because ultimately they probably don't have the experience of the people they'll be trying to provide feedback to.

 

[Hitman928]

From front page, intel Xe will be the lead product for 7 nm transition in 2021.

 

[DrMrLordX]

So Xe has been pushed back to 2021? Or is that just the datacenter version, with consumer cards coming in 2020?

 

[Dayman1225]

So Xe has been pushed back to 2021? Or is that just the datacenter version, with consumer cards coming in 2020?

Still coming in 2020 too.

"On the heels of Intel's first discrete GPU coming in 2020, the 7nm general purpose GPU is expected to launch in 2021." is what they said

 

[DrMrLordX]

Still coming in 2020 too.

"On the heels of Intel's first discrete GPU coming in 2020, the 7nm general purpose GPU is expected to launch in 2021." is what they said

Okay. Kinda makes me wonder about those first-gen chips then. Intel 10nm or TSCM/Samsung 7nm? Hmm.

 

[Dayman1225]

Okay. Kinda makes me wonder about those first-gen chips then. Intel 10nm or TSCM/Samsung 7nm? Hmm.

No idea, but FWIW Gregory Byrant (Head of Client Computing Group) just confirmed Client dGPU in 2020 and that Tigerlake uses Xe graphics engine

 

[cbn]

One thing I have been wondering about:

Does Intel have plans for HBM pin compatible Optane? (This perhaps at the third Gen of Optane due ~2021)

If they do I think that would help them become more aggressive with their GPU, FPGA and NNP designs than most people expected.

 

[jpiniero]

Okay. Kinda makes me wonder about those first-gen chips then. Intel 10nm or TSCM/Samsung 7nm? Hmm.

We'll have to see on node, but using Samsung 7 would make it easier to migrate to Intel 7 later due to both using EUV?

 

[SPBHM]

They hired Allyn (SSD Guy) Ryan Shrout (Owner) and Ken Addison (CPU review guy) from PCPer

yeah it''s kind of interesting, I used to watch their video content since when they started for years...
a guest that went there a good amount of times Tom Petersen from Nvidia also went to Intel,
oh an Raja was also there for a 1hour video during the Polaris launch not long before he left AMD for Intel

 

[DrMrLordX]

No idea, but FWIW Gregory Byrant (Head of Client Computing Group) just confirmed Client dGPU in 2020 and that Tigerlake uses Xe graphics engine

If TigerLake is only ever going to be 2c mobile parts (like IceLake client) then the Xe iGPUs are probably going to be Intel 10nm.

We'll have to see on node, but using Samsung 7 would make it easier to migrate to Intel 7 later due to both using EUV?

That . . . seems reasonable. At least by that point, Intel will have some more experience designing with an EUV node design target.

 

[Dayman1225]

If TigerLake is only ever going to be 2c mobile parts (like IceLake client) then the Xe iGPUs are probably going to be Intel 10nm.



That . . . seems reasonable. At least by that point, Intel will have some more experience designing with an EUV node design target.

Icelake Client is upto 4c.