News Intel GPUs - Falcon Shores cancelled

Page 228 - Seeking answers? Join the AnandTech community: where nearly half-a-million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.

Joe NYC

Platinum Member
Jun 26, 2021
2,790
4,105
106
For example, using your analogy of die size, the RX 7700xt has almost 2x the silicon at 350 mm2 with 200 mm of that being on n5 and with the entire architecture using special packaging techniques to get the chips to work together. Yet even with a bigger cooler/heatsink/shroud/4GB more ram/more fans, the card is selling at 400$ compared to the 270 ish of the rx 7600.

If you go backward, 7800 xt N5 die at 200 mm2 is about 73% of the B580. Now incorporate increased yield of, say 5% and we are at around 69% die cost 7800 XT die. Given that 7700xt is a salvage die, you can use your judgement how you figure the cost reduction, but quite a bit. For the sake of argument, let's call it 9% reduction, for 60% N5 cost of 7700 XT die.

With remaining 40% of the budget, you would need to buy 3x 37.5 mm2 N6 dies = 112 mm2 which is cheaper than 40% of B580 budget. Again, much cheaper wafer price, and even greater difference in yielding 37.5 mm2 dies.

So on the die price, B580 is between 7700 XT and 7800 XT. Cost of packaging (RDL wafer) shifts the costs of Navi 32 cards higher, leaving B580 and 7700XT in the same ballpark.

B580 selling for $250
7700 XT selling for $400
while costs are approximately the same. And this is for AMD unfortunate generation.


If the rx 7600 is at barely breakeven(costing ~250$ to produce/sell), then the rx 7700xt would be losing AMD 75-100 dollars for each card they sell.

No, AMD entire graphics division is at breakeven. This includes all of the design, marketing, verification, mask costs.

AMD is making some gross margin on the cards alone, which is then reduced by overhead to operating margin breakeven.

Intel is not making any margin on the cards alone. So, it is not like selling more is going to improve things. There is no way to recoup the resto of the operating costs at any volume if the product has zero gross margin.
 
Reactions: Tlh97 and blckgrffn

ajsdkflsdjfio

Member
Nov 20, 2024
171
117
76
If you go backward, 7800 xt N5 die at 200 mm2 is about 73% of the B580. Now incorporate increased yield of, say 5% and we are at around 69% die cost 7800 XT die. Given that 7700xt is a salvage die, you can use your judgement how you figure the cost reduction, but quite a bit. For the sake of argument, let's call it 9% reduction, for 60% N5 cost of 7700 XT die.

With remaining 40% of the budget, you would need to buy 3x 37.5 mm2 N6 dies = 112 mm2 which is cheaper than 40% of B580 budget. Again, much cheaper wafer price, and even greater difference in yielding 37.5 mm2 dies.

So on the die price, B580 is between 7700 XT and 7800 XT. Cost of packaging (RDL wafer) shifts the costs of Navi 32 cards higher, leaving B580 and 7700XT in the same ballpark.
You forget advanced packaging costs and the 4x not 3x MCD dies. Rather than the 7700xt package being similar to b580 I'd say it's at least 1.3x the cost(packaging alone is likely a 20 dollars increase). At 1.3x the cost that would put the 7700xt at 325 (1.3 * 250) dollars. Add more expensive AIB components typical of a 70 class card (+30 dollars) and you get 355 dollars. The remaining increase to 400 dollars is AMD and AIB margins. AMD could feasibly sell the rx 7700xt at 355 at break even pricing just like intel can feasibly be selling their arc b580s at 250 while still breaking even.
No, AMD entire graphics division is at breakeven. This includes all of the design, marketing, verification, mask costs.

AMD is making some gross margin on the cards alone, which is then reduced by overhead to operating margin breakeven.

Intel is not making any margin on the cards alone. So, it is not like selling more is going to improve things. There is no way to recoup the resto of the operating costs at any volume if the product has zero gross margin.
AMD's graphics division is not at breakeven (+15% margins consistently) and that is entirely separate from my discussion. I said that Intel was losing money overall based on R&D and other costs but that battlemage itself wasn't actively losing money for each card they produce and sell. It's a given that Intel's graphics division is losing money right now but that comes with the territory, you can't expect them to become profitable in their second generation of products when they are playing catchup with AMD and Nvidia. You can't expect it in AI and you can't expect it in graphics.

Regardless, my point is that battlemage isn't losing boatloads of money for each card they sell like many people here claim, and it's useful to launch since they needed to do the R&D anyways to continue to iterate, launching a Net-Zero card using their R&D for consumers certainly can't hurt. Also, the card is competitively priced and arguably has a chance at capturing market share and most importantly provides another step towards Intel's goal of becoming the third player in the GPU market by providing crucial data, knowledge, and a testing bed for much needed software improvements. Putting R&D into GPU is so much more than battlemage and was going to happen regardless. Aside from future discrete GPUs, integrated graphics, laptop SOC designs, future AI (falcon shores, jaguar shores), and tons of other markets rely on Intel's GPU advancements. Intel is finally putting the work in to engineer competitive graphics offerings like they should have done decades ago.

Anybody saying battlemage is a net negative for Intel or that it's in Intel's best interests to discontinue battlemage, is simply delusional. We can only speculate on Intel's future in GPUs, but battlemage has thus far shown to be a good sign of what's to come, not the other way around.
 
Last edited:

Shmee

Memory & Storage, Graphics Cards Mod Elite Member
Super Moderator
Sep 13, 2008
7,903
2,879
146
So from what I am hearing, the B580 had a fairly good launch? Good to see more competition, even if at the lower end. My understanding is that the performance is similar to 6750XT, maybe a bit higher? I guess that makes sense and is fair for the price. I am interested to see reviews, and see also how drivers develop. Windows seems to be improving for Arc, how about on Linux? Does Intel have good open source drivers like AMD now? Or are they going the proprietary route like Nvidia?
 
Reactions: Tlh97 and blckgrffn

BurnItDwn

Lifer
Oct 10, 1999
26,234
1,718
126
So from what I am hearing, the B580 had a fairly good launch? Good to see more competition, even if at the lower end. My understanding is that the performance is similar to 6750XT, maybe a bit higher? I guess that makes sense and is fair for the price. I am interested to see reviews, and see also how drivers develop. Windows seems to be improving for Arc, how about on Linux? Does Intel have good open source drivers like AMD now? Or are they going the proprietary route like Nvidia?
Yes, overall it seems like a fairly good launch, though it is a low volume launch, so likely to be out of stock and hard to find for a while at its MSRP.
From what I have read, the performance is generally within ballpark of 6700xt performance, or a tiny bit weaker than 6750xt, but faster than 6700 non xt overall.

It also seems to be the first budget card with actually decent RT performance.

As far as Linux drivers go, the Mesa Open source drivers are the way to go (like AMD).
But, not very many reviews covering linux yet.
I dont know this site well, but i came across their review which, looks pretty lackluster in linux to be honest (though a big improvement over past ARC cards)

"Level 1 Techs" has confirmed they are "working on it" when it comes to their linux review. So more info should be available soonish.


(i just saw your updated reply)
And yes, I like Wizard's review over at TPU!
 

blckgrffn

Diamond Member
May 1, 2003
9,501
3,816
136
www.teamjuchems.com
@ajsd

I don’t disagree with you in principal, but the 7700xt is not the product AMD wants to sell and it probably does what, 20% of the real deal SKU the 7800xt. If the 7700xt is indeed a harvested part from defective dies, then its existence is justified in both saving completely wasted dies and filing a market niche that AMD appeared much happier to let the 6700xt dominate for essentially the entire RDNA3 run.

Next, the real comparison should be against the B570 which serves the same purpose for Intel and is also likely a card they would like to sell only as many as needed of.

The fact that we’d compare a die harvested/only because it would cost even more to throw it away part with Intels best swing atm is damning with faint praise.

I still think it’s most likely that Intel is building this business for their fabs to have a good customer in the future vs making money now. A calculated investment. Probably
 
Last edited:

DrMrLordX

Lifer
Apr 27, 2000
22,369
12,175
136
I still think it’s most likely that Intel is building this business for their fabs to have a good customer in the future vs making money now. A calculated investment. Probably
That seems optimistic. Alchemist was supposed to consume excess 10nm supply and we saw how that worked out.
 

ajsdkflsdjfio

Member
Nov 20, 2024
171
117
76
@ajsd

I don’t disagree with you in principal, but the 7700xt is not the product AMD wants to sell and it probably does what, 20% of the real deal SKU the 7800xt. If the 7700xt is indeed a harvested part from defective dies, then its existence is justified in both saving completely wasted dies and filing a market niche that AMD appeared much happier to let the 6700xt dominate for essentially the entire RDNA3 run.

Next, the real comparison should be against the B570 which serves the same purpose for Intel and is also likely a card they would like to sell only as many as needed of.

The fact that we’d compare a die harvested/only because it would cost even more to throw it away part with Intels best swing atm is damning with faint praise.
Yes the 7700xt is harvested from weaker dies, not always fully defective though or there would be no volume in the product. We have seen this in many generations where very popular and high volume products are cut down dies of a higher end chip. Regardless chipmakers are still perfectly willing to sell these cut-down products since they still make a profit for them.

My point wasn't to compare the two cards, It was to illustrate the false narrative that since the b580 die costs twice as much as the rx 7600 which retails for a similar price, that Intel is somehow losing a bunch of money each time they produce a battlemage card. Dies are only part of the cost of a GPU, the RX 7600 for example has a die that costs around 40 dollars compared to the 250$ msrp, even with a die twice as expensive that only makes the b580 40 dollars more expensive to produce, well within margin to break even. Breaking even is obviously not what they would optimally want, but in this scenario it is perfectly fine for what they are setting out to do.

Realistically the b580 is a 300 dollar card and would sell perfectly fine at that price given that it beats the 4060 at 1080p and even raytracing on average, and significantly beats it at 1440p making it the first sub 300 GPU to be viable for 1440p. The card is even more efficient than the 4060 under load despite performing better while leaving the 7600 behind. The fact that intel is still willing to price it so aggressively should show you something, that their margins on the 250$ price is probably not losing them money and that they think the decreased/no profit is worth it to gain consumer mindshare which I believe they have done.

As for recuperating R&D costs that is an entirely different discussion and one that involves more than just battlemage. The architecture is just not ready to be competitive at such a level where they can start to profit on their graphics division as a whole. I mean what else would you expect, this is their second generation product, don't know why everyone is freaking out about it. The important thing is they made notable improvements over Alchemist which consumers are starting to appreciate and overall things are looking up for their future graphics endeavors. Celestial is rumored to be a larger innovation than battlemage and we will already start to see products with it next year with panther lake. Even if intel only managed a similar uplift in celestial as battlemage, they would still be in an excellent position.
 

Tup3x

Golden Member
Dec 31, 2016
1,180
1,249
136
I wonder if Intel can force anisotropic filtering in Vulkan games too. If it's possible then they are one upping NVIDIA. There are so many games that have just broken or really lacking AF settings. AMD's setting is pretty much useless. Forcing/enhancing MSAA (and SGSSAA) in legacy games is something that NVIDIA does well. Intel can't force MSAA in older games?
 

Win2012R2

Senior member
Dec 5, 2024
647
609
96
Here is another way to look at it - PS5 Pro made also on TSMC N5-class process with comparable die size (around 300 sq mm), so same time of manufacturing, same process, same yields (at least physical), so the deltas are for PS5 Pro -

Cons -

1) +4 GB GDDR6 (+$10)
2) +2 GB DDR4 (+$3)
3) 2 TB pcie4 level nvme - ($100 retail, big volumes must give at least 30% off so $70)
4) bigger case with some ports - $40
5) bigger motherboard - $40
6) nice controller in box - $37 (taking half retail price)
7) bigger carton box - $5
8) AMD exact margin is unknown but we know AMD semi-custom historically had low margins (Sony very big client that saved AMD with PS4), so not factoring this in here
9) no disk drive in it - $0
Total: 10+3+70+40+40+37.50+5=$ 205 (Sony got massive buying power so this number will be considerably lower for sure).

Pros (mentioning them but not factoring into final calculation) -

1) extra 30% revenues on all software sold
2) to offset 1) one must pay $100 for disk drive that has got cost of $20 max (so +$80 margin regained).

Sell price - $700, let's say generous retail margin of 10%, so $630 to Sony.

Ignoring pros (which they really should not be as they typically pay for otherwise low or even negative margin device) we have for like-for-like equivalent device -
1) Sony makes $425 (oh wow, what a strange coincidence - that's not far off AMD's selling prices for 7700XT)
2) Intel makes $250 (with zero retail margin, transport, insurance etc)

Question - on which planets in the Milky Way Intel would be making a loss (as in negative gross margin, nevermind R&D) on each sale?
Answer - on all of them!

And that's the way the news goes.

It's over.
 

DAPUNISHER

Super Moderator CPU Forum Mod and Elite Member
Super Moderator
Aug 22, 2001
30,379
26,931
146
I don't know if this has been posted already:

Compounded performance issues by testing with the 285K platform. SMDH

From reading around, still having issues with old games. Performance remains unbalanced; frame pacing issues in some titles. Much as they did with my A series cards.

I don't understand why the performance metrics are no longer an overlay but they have to get that patched in. Almost PnP...almost.
 

Tup3x

Golden Member
Dec 31, 2016
1,180
1,249
136
Last edited:

DAPUNISHER

Super Moderator CPU Forum Mod and Elite Member
Super Moderator
Aug 22, 2001
30,379
26,931
146
Wendell talked about the CPU overhead being high, as with the A series. 10700K is CPU limiting the B580 in 2077. Is it that alone, or PCIe 3.0 x8 coming into play as well?
 

Win2012R2

Senior member
Dec 5, 2024
647
609
96
And the Pro Fit has spoken...


Well, even a broken clock MLID can be right from time to time, volume is clearly low because the more you buy the more Intel loses!

P.S. Looks like MLID is feeling the heat from the current popular opinion that new Arc is great, so he is adjusting his narrative a tad.
 
Last edited:

Meteor Late

Senior member
Dec 15, 2023
266
292
96
And the Pro Fit has spoken...


Well, even a broken clock MLID can be right from time to time, volume is clearly low because the more you buy the more Intel loses!

P.S. Looks like MLID is feeling the heat from the current popular opinion that new Arc is great, so he is adjusting his narrative a tad.

People do NOT care if Intel is losing money or not, people are mostly concerned about getting a good value product. It's as simple as that.
Of course B580 is great, at least in United States. When people has to start resorting to refurbished deals like MLID was doing when comparing B580 value to 3060, or people in comments talk about used cards, you know there are not many arguments left.
 
sale-70-410-exam    | Exam-200-125-pdf    | we-sale-70-410-exam    | hot-sale-70-410-exam    | Latest-exam-700-603-Dumps    | Dumps-98-363-exams-date    | Certs-200-125-date    | Dumps-300-075-exams-date    | hot-sale-book-C8010-726-book    | Hot-Sale-200-310-Exam    | Exam-Description-200-310-dumps?    | hot-sale-book-200-125-book    | Latest-Updated-300-209-Exam    | Dumps-210-260-exams-date    | Download-200-125-Exam-PDF    | Exam-Description-300-101-dumps    | Certs-300-101-date    | Hot-Sale-300-075-Exam    | Latest-exam-200-125-Dumps    | Exam-Description-200-125-dumps    | Latest-Updated-300-075-Exam    | hot-sale-book-210-260-book    | Dumps-200-901-exams-date    | Certs-200-901-date    | Latest-exam-1Z0-062-Dumps    | Hot-Sale-1Z0-062-Exam    | Certs-CSSLP-date    | 100%-Pass-70-383-Exams    | Latest-JN0-360-real-exam-questions    | 100%-Pass-4A0-100-Real-Exam-Questions    | Dumps-300-135-exams-date    | Passed-200-105-Tech-Exams    | Latest-Updated-200-310-Exam    | Download-300-070-Exam-PDF    | Hot-Sale-JN0-360-Exam    | 100%-Pass-JN0-360-Exams    | 100%-Pass-JN0-360-Real-Exam-Questions    | Dumps-JN0-360-exams-date    | Exam-Description-1Z0-876-dumps    | Latest-exam-1Z0-876-Dumps    | Dumps-HPE0-Y53-exams-date    | 2017-Latest-HPE0-Y53-Exam    | 100%-Pass-HPE0-Y53-Real-Exam-Questions    | Pass-4A0-100-Exam    | Latest-4A0-100-Questions    | Dumps-98-365-exams-date    | 2017-Latest-98-365-Exam    | 100%-Pass-VCS-254-Exams    | 2017-Latest-VCS-273-Exam    | Dumps-200-355-exams-date    | 2017-Latest-300-320-Exam    | Pass-300-101-Exam    | 100%-Pass-300-115-Exams    |
http://www.portvapes.co.uk/    | http://www.portvapes.co.uk/    |