News Intel GPUs - Falcon Shores cancelled

[igor_kavinski]

Time will tell, but right now the promise of a bright future doesn't pay stock holder dividends.

I believe there should be an internetwide push to buy ARC GPUs, whether we want them or not. If they are able to clear out their stock, that will bode well for them staying in the game. Stale and rotting inventory could hasten their demise. I say this not because I want Intel to succeed but because I believe a third player would make things really interesting in this space. Heck, the Chinese should jump in too and maybe they will do a better job than Intel. And maybe after that, the Koreans.

Something that I've been thinking, how hard would it be to write an x86 driver for ARM GPUs? Their power efficiency should allow Qualcomm/Samsung/Mediatek to put a bunch of them in SLI on a card and they could manage to give decent performance at least at the 3050 level with a lower or similar power budget.

 

[JustViewing]

I currently have a 1070ti, so it might be a decent upgrade for me that offers 16GB of VRAM.

By all means please upgrade and take one for the team. After that let us know about the performance.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

I believe there should be an internet wide push to buy ARC GPUs, whether we want them or not.

That amounts to saying - Hey guyz! If we overpay for underperforming broken hardware now, there is a chance that later, they will have better hardware and it will create competition that drives down prices, and foster innovation. It totally won't send the message that you can put fans and led lights on a steaming turd and we will line up to buy it.

 

[igor_kavinski]

It totally won't send the message that you can put fans and led lights on a steaming turd and we will line up to buy it.

Heh. Well, I'm the stupid eternal optimist. I'm hoping that they will feel gratitude for the support and it will boost the team's morale, motivating them to do much better. There's also the danger of Raja gloating but I guess we should learn to deal with it, as long as he is the top dog in their GPU division.

 

[Heartbreaker]

@LightningZ71 Semianalysis, not Semiaccurate.

It does tell you how far behind they were before since Iris Xe was a tremendous step in perf/watt and perf/mm2 over Gen 11 in Icelake and Gen 9 in Skylake derivatives.

I think there's a generation gap in mentality as well, because they were so used to making only iGPU designs.

Watching that recent interview with Raja, really gave me the impression that he's not that hands on or strong technically.

IMO when doing such a major overhaul, you need a strong technical leader, who can really guide his team through any stumbles.

Someone like a Jim Keller on CPUs. Raja is no Jim Keller.

I can see not being able to completely advance the shader cores, but failing to get memory interfaces straightened out, and failing to do efficient memory copies seems like rookie mistakes. Raja made a comment about getting caught by this because Intel iGPUs didn't need to copy memory locations.

Yeah, it's really too bad, Intel didn't hire someone with lots of experience designing Discrete GPUs, so they wouldn't be stuck in an iGPU mentality.

Raja: Is all over promise, under deliver, followed by excuses.

 

[Thunder 57]

Watching that recent interview with Raja, really gave me the impression that he's not that hands on or strong technically.

IMO when doing such a major overhaul, you need a strong technical leader, who can really guide his team through any stumbles.

Someone like a Jim Keller on CPUs. Raja is no Jim Keller.

I can see not being able to completely advance the shader cores, but failing to get memory interfaces straightened out, and failing to do efficient memory copies seems like rookie mistakes. Raja made a comment about getting caught by this because Intel iGPUs didn't need to copy memory locations.

Yeah, it's really too bad, Intel didn't hire someone with lots of experience designing Discrete GPUs, so they wouldn't be stuck in an iGPU mentality.

Raja: Is all over promise, under deliver, followed by excuses.

I wish I could be paid as much to be so incompetent. Or Hector Ruinz.

Well maybe incompetent is a strong word. Surely he has talent. He just can't apply it well enough to keep up with the competetion. Intel hiring him away from AMD was probably doing them a favor.

 

[Heartbreaker]

I wish I could be paid as much to be so incompetent. Or Hector Ruinz.

Well maybe incompetent is a strong word. Surely he has talent. He just can't apply it well enough to keep up with the competetion. Intel hiring him away from AMD was probably doing them a favor.

Massive change after he left AMD. No more overpromising, no more under-delivering, no more excuses, just consistent generational improvements.

If it was just a one off, you could argue that he was instrumental in the next design, so could get some of that success, but every release since he's gone just gets better and better.

And now at Intel, leading GPU design for almost 5 years, and they are still making iGPU mistakes...

 

[sandorski]

Reminds me of the before time when I had a Diamond Viper 2 Z200(IIRC) with a S3 Savage 2000 gpu. UT and Q3 performance bested everyone else and was graphically flawless. Any other game I played with it though had some Graphic or Performance issue.T&L(Transform and Lighting) Acceleration functioned, but provided no advantage making it just a Marketing bullet point.

Anyway, Intel has deep pockets and should be able to solve their Driver issues with Time. Might need a new GPU before that happens though.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

I wish I could be paid as much to be so incompetent. Or Hector Ruinz.

Ah. "Good old" Wrector Ruinz. The gift that gave on giving.

As for paying people for incompetence. I doubt anyone could print enough money fast enough...

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Reminds me of the before time when I had a Diamond Viper 2 Z200(IIRC) with a S3 Savage 2000 gpu. UT and Q3 performance bested everyone else and was graphically flawless. Any other game I played with it though had some Graphic or Performance issue.T&L(Transform and Lighting) Acceleration functioned, but provided no advantage making it just a Marketing bullet point.

Anyway, Intel has deep pockets and should be able to solve their Driver issues with Time. Might need a new GPU before that happens though.

I had one of those Diamonds too; It was MeTal AFudge. I recall a game with wall hacks because it wouldn't render them.

And yeah, they have a new GPU coming, Gandalf the Grey erm I mean BattleMage.

 

[Topweasel]

That amounts to saying - Hey guyz! If we overpay for underperforming broken hardware now, there is a chance that later, they will have better hardware and it will create competition that drives down prices, and foster innovation. It totally won't send the message that you can put fans and led lights on a steaming turd and we will line up to buy it.

I get to some degree of supporting the idea of a third company doing video cards we need that. I have always been a proponent that if its close by AMD on CPU and GPU. I say that as someone who skipped over BD completely (last AMD CPU before my 1700 was a Llano APU). It has to be realistically close. I get getting it because its quick enough in the games you play, or if you like being a beta tester there is some limited potential for these Arc GPU's getting more powerful (though they think the limitations can't be solved in drivers). But honestly no matter how badly ARC is going to sell and the chances of Intel taking their ball and going home after the first release, there is no company in the world who deserves less pity money than Intel. They might have made a stinker of a GPU. But they make money hand over fist and just got a bunch of money, just for owning fabs, ones their competitor had to sell to because of anti competitive behavior Intel has displayed.

 

[sandorski]

I had one of those Diamonds too; It was MeTal AFudge. I recall a game with wall hacks because it wouldn't render them.

And yeah, they have a new GPU coming, Gandalf the Grey erm I mean BattleMage.

UT with the Metal api was pretty sweet though. I ended up replacing that card with a Voodoo5 5500, just 6 months before 3dfx went kaput.

 

[IntelUser2000]

Heck, the Chinese should jump in too and maybe they will do a better job than Intel. And maybe after that, the Koreans.

The reason Intel is the only viable 3rd contender is because they had iGPU base for the longest time. Even though driver and game stability seems suspect, that's still not starting entirely from scratch, which rest of them will have to do and be far, far worse.

Regardless the job will be a huge undertaking.

Yeah, it's really too bad, Intel didn't hire someone with lots of experience designing Discrete GPUs, so they wouldn't be stuck in an iGPU mentality.

I am still on the fence with Raja. RDNA did release shortly enough that it would have had lot of influence as his design.

Another thing is Intel has a cultural problem which existed even back in Otellini days and got progressively worse.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

The reason Intel is the only viable 3rd contender is because they had iGPU base for the longest time. Even though driver and game stability seems suspect, that's still not starting entirely from scratch, which rest of them will have to do and be far worse.

Regardless the job will be monumental.

I don't know dude, Chinese companies aren't sitting on their hands. While PC gaming may not be a focus, there are companies like Biren Technology jumping in feet first.

It seems like super powers want domestic technology and its manufacturing for national security reasons now.

 

[IntelUser2000]

I don't know dude, Chinese companies aren't sitting on their hands. While PC gaming may not be a focus, there are companies like Biren Technology jumping in feet first.

Yea, that still leaves them optimizing everything completely from scratch. Not to mention you still have to deal with hardware compatibility issues, and there will be lots.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Yea, that still leaves them optimizing everything completely from scratch. Not to mention you still have to deal with hardware compatibility issues, and there will be lots.

What they have that Intel doesn't have is millions of meatbags for cheap labor. Heck, there could be a huge beta test going on right now and we wouldn't know, due to their draconian enforcement of whatever law they deem necessary to pass, to help them stay competitive. The situation there is such that people would even work for food and shelter, as long as they live to see another day.

 

[IntelUser2000]

The situation there is such that people would even work for food and shelter, as long as they live to see another day.

Look at back when S3 and Via entered the dGPU market way back. Remember they were the Intel Extreme Graphics days. They thought Intel support was bad, but the other vendors were way, way worse.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Look at back when S3 and Via entered the dGPU market way back. Remember they were the Intel Extreme Graphics days. They thought Intel support was bad, but the other vendors were way, way worse.

VIA could be bad but I vaguely remember that my first AGP card was S3 (started with a 6 I think). It probably had 4 MB VRAM and did OK in light DX6 games. But watching those lovely blocky 3D graphics created a yearning that led to purchasing a Voodoo3 3000 AGP.

 

[IntelUser2000]

VIA could be bad but I vaguely remember that my first AGP card was S3 (started with a 6 I think). It probably had 4 MB VRAM and did OK in light DX6 games. But watching those lovely blocky 3D graphics created a yearning that led to purchasing a Voodoo3 3000 AGP.

I'm talking a bit later actually. And sorry I meant SiS. The Intel ones at least had the basic desktop functions right. The others didn't even have the basics right.

Drivers are extremely complicated. That's why the basis they have makes them the most potent contender. The drivers have improved significantly too, so if they keep the trajectory, they should be fine.

 

[GunsMadeAmericaFree]

>>I am certain you guys are on point with OEMs using the cards. But when? They ship them in the current state and the return rate will be bonkers.

Cool! Do you think I'll be able to get a decent deal on an 'open box' return in time for black friday?

 

[IntelUser2000]

The OEMs will also be reluctant with using the cards. Asrock, Gunnir, and Acer being only announced partners so far is a bit of a red flag too.

Good customer relations are nice, but you need the products to be not so bad.

 

[igor_kavinski]

I'm talking a bit later actually. And sorry I meant SiS.

Yeah. I think it was a SiS. I just remember it had a green yellow logo at boot.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

I'm talking a bit later actually. And sorry I meant SiS. The Intel ones at least had the basic desktop functions right. The others didn't even have the basics right.

You are missing a key to the Chinese being successful where those others failed. They have zero respect for intellectual property rights. It's a hell of a lot easier to piggyback off of others hard work.

 

[IntelUser2000]

You are missing a key to the Chinese being successful where those others failed. They have zero respect for intellectual property rights. It's a hell of a lot easier to piggyback off of others hard work.

No, you still need hard, hard work to optimize every game out there for your specific architecture, unless they are going to carbon copy the GPUs out there from the three manufacturers. Some games even need explicit support to make it work properly.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

No, you still need hard, hard work to optimize every game out there for your specific architecture, unless they are going to carbon copy the GPUs out there from the three manufacturers. Some games even need explicit support to make it work properly.

It wouldn't be the first time they ripped off intellectual property wholesale.

I am merely pointing out it is a mistake to assign what happened to every other company to the current Chinese players. There are no limits to what they will do to succeed. They may not be able to market it in the West, but they will supplant us in their home market ASAP is my prediction.

This is certainly not a hill I am willing to die on though.

As to ARC; I think PC Rag wants to have Intel's babies -https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/intel-arc-a770-limited-edition