Intel Could Ditch AMD dGPU Die on Future Core G-series MCMs with "Arctic Sound"

[_JP_]

Sure, but keep making incredibly smart decisions (/s) like SKUs with the most advanced features at insane price points for which no consumer product will reach production. Case in point, eDRAM-equipped Iris on obscure BGA-only SKUs for low-power platforms.

 

[notb]

They have foundries because they expanded in so many fields. But they ultimately did that to be self sustaining.

No. They have foundries because it's just a business in their portfolio. 50 years ago Samsung was mostly a construction company. Later they extended it with Heavy Industry (ships, cranes etc) and Electronics subsidiaries.
Samsung is not a single company. It's a group. It does many things, but withing different companies. When Samsung Electronics needs a metal shell for their phone, it can choose a Samsung Group subsidiary as a supplier, but it has to pay just like any other client.

 

[RejZoR]

No. They have foundries because it's just a business in their portfolio. 50 years ago Samsung was mostly a construction company. Later they extended it with Heavy Industry (ships, cranes etc) and Electronics subsidiaries.
Samsung is not a single company. It's a group. It does many things, but withing different companies. When Samsung Electronics needs a metal shell for their phone, it can choose a Samsung Group subsidiary as a supplier, but it has to pay just like any other client.

No way, they don't get aluminium metal frames for free then? Man, what are you even saying? Self sustainable. Larger margins. More profit. If you have to depend on bunch of external companies, you can be assured it'll never work as smoothly as when it's your own subsidiary. The fact one is Samsung Heavy Industries and another Samsung Electronics makes no difference. The parent company is the same and they can easier sit down together and lay out plans to make even more profit than negotiate with external party. That's all there is to it.

 

[Aquinus]

No way, they don't get aluminium metal frames for free then? Man, what are you even saying? Self sustainable. Larger margins. More profit. If you have to depend on bunch of external companies, you can be assured it'll never work as smoothly as when it's your own subsidiary. The fact one is Samsung Heavy Industries and another Samsung Electronics makes no difference. The parent company is the same and they can easier sit down together and lay out plans to make even more profit than negotiate with external party. That's all there is to it.

It doesn't quite work that way because the profits are still split between the separate businesses within the conglomerate. If subsidiaries didn't have to pay for anything from the others, there would be no revenue for the businesses at the beginning of the chain and the only companies to make money would be the ones selling outside of the group. That's not how conglomerates work. Conglomerates manage businesses. It's not consolidation, it's orchestration. It's true that there is a level of centralized organization that can orchestrate these things but, the subsidiaries are still independent entities. It's more likely that when they're selling within the group that there is a substantial discount as opposed to selling outside of it and that might be a requirement set forth by the conglomerate. That doesn't yield more profit though, it just shifts to who is earning it. If Samsung (the group,) felt that one company needed more revenue to expand operations, they very well might increase prices in general, even for subsidiaries because it shifts money to where they need it without a single organization being responsible for all of it. There are a boatload of reasons why this works well but, most of them are due local laws.

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

It doesn't quite work that way because the profits are still split between the separate businesses within the conglomerate. If subsidiaries didn't have to pay for anything from the others, there would be no revenue for the businesses at the beginning of the chain and the only companies to make money would be the ones selling outside of the group. That's not how conglomerates work. Conglomerates manage businesses. It's not consolidation, it's orchestration. It's true that there is a level of centralized organization that can orchestrate these things but, the subsidiaries are still independent entities. It's more likely that when they're selling within the group that there is a substantial discount as opposed to selling outside of it and that might be a requirement set forth by the conglomerate. That doesn't yield more profit though, it just shifts to who is earning it. If Samsung (the group,) felt that one company needed more revenue to expand operations, they very well might increase prices in general, even for subsidiaries because it shifts money to where they need it without a single organization being responsible for all of it. There are a boatload of reasons why this works well but, most of them are due local laws.

You need your sarcasm alarm tuning, from what i read he knows they would pay for aluminium frames from a subsidiary, but feels that they would still end up cheaper or at least more cost effective via on time deliverys and less errors etc i believe ,and hes right.
@notb i never took it personally why would I , im not the one with shares in a company continuously bad mouthing it's main competitor at every opportunity like it's a job, I made a missive comment based largely on delivery times of intel dGpu.
And noted your condescension of Amd , stop being an arse and ill stop pointing out to the people your trying to inform ,just how unvalid and biased your Bs is.

 

[notb]

You need your sarcasm alarm tuning, from what i read he knows they would pay for aluminium frames from a subsidiary, but feels that they would still end up cheaper or at least more cost effective via on time deliverys and less errors etc i believe ,and hes right.

No. Samsung "we make aluminium" can't sell to Samsung "we need aluminium" cheaper than it would to other companies. It's the exact same price.

@notb i never took it personally

You do. I'm not criticizing you. I'm criticizing AMD. And you're defending them like if you were a part of the family. Also you fail to acknowledge that AMD could in fact be a failed company on its road to collapse. Or the fact that their approach to Spectre / Meltdown isn't perfect. Yes, I prefer Intel products and business culture. And I have no problem with admitting that Intel's strategy is optimized for profit and it has a history of some not very praiseworthy activities. Well... it's business.

Self sustainable. Larger margins. More profit. If you have to depend on bunch of external companies, you can be assured it'll never work as smoothly as when it's your own subsidiary. The fact one is Samsung Heavy Industries and another Samsung Electronics makes no difference. The parent company is the same and they can easier sit down together and lay out plans to make even more profit than negotiate with external party. That's all there is to it.

Just a list of "no"s. Sorry.
1) No, Samsung is not self sustainable. They would have to join all subsidiaries, which would result in a mess (I don't even think it's possible).
2) No, margins aren't larger. They sell for the same price.
3) And, most importantly, NO, there is no explicit "parent company". There's a net of dependencies, which usually results in Lee family controlling each company. But they can't decide on their own.
For example: Lee family members and other Samsung companies have 25% of Samsung Electronics, so they're in full control in stable times, but if they were going too far, the rest of investors could easily oppose them. And of course Lee's don't control 100% these other S. companies, but they have enough votes to be able to choose the representative for Samsung Electronics general meetings. That's how a conglomerate works.
I've found a graph from 2014 (a simplified version: only the major companies and share percentages are displayed).

 

[rippie]

i crack up , when i see a project name for graphics that has "sound" in it. doomed from the start

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

No. Samsung "we make aluminium" can't sell to Samsung "we need aluminium" cheaper than it would to other companies. It's the exact same price.

You do. I'm not criticizing you. I'm criticizing AMD. And you're defending them like if you were a part of the family. Also you fail to acknowledge that AMD could in fact be a failed company on its road to collapse. Or the fact that their approach to Spectre / Meltdown isn't perfect. Yes, I prefer Intel products and business culture. And I have no problem with admitting that Intel's strategy is optimized for profit and it has a history of some not very praiseworthy activities. Well... it's business.

Just a list of "no"s. Sorry.
1) No, Samsung is not self sustainable. They would have to join all subsidiaries, which would result in a mess (I don't even think it's possible).
2) No, margins aren't larger. They sell for the same price.
3) And, most importantly, NO, there is no explicit "parent company". There's a net of dependencies, which usually results in Lee family controlling each company. But they can't decide on their own.
For example: Lee family members and other Samsung companies have 25% of Samsung Electronics, so they're in full control in stable times, but if they were going too far, the rest of investors could easily oppose them. And of course Lee's don't control 100% these other S. companies, but they have enough votes to be able to choose the representative for Samsung Electronics general meetings. That's how a conglomerate works.
I've found a graph from 2014 (a simplified version: only the major companies and share percentages are displayed).

Whos the one writing essays about random stuff to prove themselves right here dude , have a word with yourself ,im just observant and fair.

 

[Vya Domus]

If anyone can beat NVIDIA at its own game, it's Intel.

I wonder what is it that makes you say that. The fact that they have a ton of money ? They've proven to be incapable of entering new markets even after wasting billions in the past and not just once. There is absolutely nothing that points out to them being capable of doing that or even coming close , Intel's GPU division is several generations behind everyone else from all aspects. And when I say everyone I mean literally everyone not just AMD and Nvidia. One can argue ARM's new Mali GPUs are an entire order of magnitude ahead of Intel's in several ways.

Realistically , they are probably one of the least capable of taking over the GPU market within any reasonable time frame. They are just way behind.

I find it hilarious how everyone thought that Raja single handedly ruined RTG but now he will supposedly make miracles at Intel. And both of those assumption are wrong I would add.

 

[notb]

Intel's GPU division is several generations behind everyone else from all aspects.

LOL. No, they're not.
Performance-oriented Iris Pro chips have surpassed pre-Vega APUs quite a while ago.
The cheap HD IGPs aren't far behind. HD630 offers 50-70% of A12-9800 performance in games (e.g.

).

And remember that HD chips are not optimized for performance. It's a cheap IGP with surprisingly decent features that's meant to be put in every consumer CPU.

As for dGPUs or something like Vega IGP - no, Intel doesn't know how to make them as well as NVIDIA and AMD - they've never really bothered about this niche. Gamers will buy dGPUs anyway.
They got interested lately - mostly because of how much software uses GPU acceleration, so Intel CPUs started to lose ground in so called "productivity".
Another reason is how small NVIDIA mobile GPUs are becoming. Intel had a monopoly for graphics in thin notebooks. Now you can buy an ultrabook with MX150. They needed an answer. For the time being it'll be Vega. We'll see what comes next.

 

[snakefist]

While they (Intel) may decide to discontinue the contract with AMD (but why signing it in the first place, then?), the 'Intel discrete GPU' story, led by Raja or really anyone in the world, is totally unlikely. Firstly, GPU development time is something like 3 or more years, so if anything new starts developing right now - well, hello 2021. Secondly, we may remember Intel's glorious discrete GPU history - might not be relevant today, but it's just... refresh your memories, please... Thirdly, Raja Raja Raja, nice, Raja in AMD is a powerful asset, Raja in NVIDIA is a powerful asset, but Raja in Intel? Both AMD and NVIDIA have like gazzilion patents on everything GPU-related, that development of 3rd architecture which doesn't use them heavily is... did I say 3 years at the beginning of the post? Make it 10-20, in this case. Maybe it will be a quantum GPU, nobody has patents on that yet.

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

LOL. No, they're not.
Performance-oriented Iris Pro chips have surpassed pre-Vega APUs quite a while ago.
The cheap HD IGPs aren't far behind. HD630 offers 50-70% of A12-9800 performance in games (e.g.

).

And remember that HD chips are not optimized for performance. It's a cheap IGP with surprisingly decent features that's meant to be put in every consumer CPU.

As for dGPUs or something like Vega IGP - no, Intel doesn't know how to make them as well as NVIDIA and AMD - they've never really bothered about this niche. Gamers will buy dGPUs anyway.
They got interested lately - mostly because of how much software uses GPU acceleration, so Intel CPUs started to lose ground in so called "productivity".
Another reason is how small NVIDIA mobile GPUs are becoming. Intel had a monopoly for graphics in thin notebooks. Now you can buy an ultrabook with MX150. They needed an answer. For the time being it'll be Vega. We'll see what comes next.

Intel have had many borked gpu attempts last being knights corner derivative shit, simple truth up until a year or two ago intel still believed the graphics could be done best in software with their niche igpu there for taylor made use cases like encode/decode, knights weva put that notion to bed so now they need gpu arch tech they are going to struggle, it's not just Nvidia and Amd holding graphics patents you also have arm, power vr, qualcom and a few others, the more i consider it the more i expect knights lance 5 ,i don't think id buy that.

 

[notb]

Intel have had many borked gpu attempts last being knights corner derivative shit, simple truth up until a year or two ago intel still believed the graphics could be done best in software with their niche igpu there for taylor made use cases like encode/decode, knights weva put that notion to bed so now they need gpu arch tech they are going to struggle, it's not just Nvidia and Amd holding graphics patents you also have arm, power vr, qualcom and a few others, the more i consider it the more i expect knights lance 5 ,i don't think id buy that.

Well... NVIDIA and AMD are not the only companies that could provide the patents.
And I'm still a believer in Radeon takeover.

You should not evaluate Intel's potential by the fact that they don't make discrete gaming GPUs. And the IGPs (both HD and Iris) are top notch.

Also, I don't know what you have against Xeon Phi. It's a very powerful chip. It's just slightly late to the game.
Xeon Phis are doing very well in HPC market.
It could find its way into consumer PCs as well.

If Intel came up with this idea 5 years earlier, I doubt science and enginnering would be so dominated by CUDA today. Everyone would use x86 coprocessors - they're just way easier to use.

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

Well... NVIDIA and AMD are not the only companies that could provide the patents.
And I'm still a believer in Radeon takeover.

You should not evaluate Intel's potential by the fact that they don't make discrete gaming GPUs. And the IGPs (both HD and Iris) are top notch.

Also, I don't know what you have against Xeon Phi. It's a very powerful chip. It's just slightly late to the game.
Xeon Phis are doing very well in HPC market.
It could find its way into consumer PCs as well.

If Intel came up with this idea 5 years earlier, I doubt science and enginnering would be so dominated by CUDA today. Everyone would use x86 coprocessors - they're just way easier to use.

I'll continue to evaluate intel based on the facts i see and the history i saw over the last 40 years thanks, and i use intels gpus too you know or do you believe i only touch Amd wares, at present i own two intel gpu type systems, one mostly amd main rig(it's got a 1060 in it too) one 8 amd card rig and two four card each Nvidia rigs, so quit with the bs that intels igpu is top notch, the best one they do is shit, the typical one they sell is far worse.
Knights ferry started as a gpu , did you not know that , it's hpc use is both niche and circumstantial ie they researched it (for gfx ,made it and it was still shit ,after said Research) so yeah they're going to try and sell it , obviously.
And feck the ifs , arm would've not existed if intel had the foresight you wish they had.........

 

[Vya Domus]

May we live and see the day when Intel independently develops GPUs that are more than display adapters. Or that aren't beaten by half decade old low end GPUs.

 

[notb]

so quit with the bs that intels igpu is top notch, the best one they do is shit, the typical one they sell is far worse.

It seems I don't understand how you evaluate whether these IGPs are good or not. Is it by gaming potential?

Knights ferry started as a gpu , did you not know that

I know that very well. Intel wasn't happy with it's performance as GPU, so they turned it into a coprocessor. A damn good one.

it's hpc use is both niche and circumstantial

And I wouldn't call them "niche and circumstantial". They're just very specialized.
The idea of many-core processors is getting a lot of traction in the top500 list.
29 computers use Xeon Phi (20 in top100)
by comparison:
87 computers use NVIDIA Tesla (19 in top100)

Not bad, right?

And there are a few other many-core contenders (Sunway, PEZY etc).
It's a very good idea in general. It's just that host CPU-only solutions are easier to code for and CUDA got very, very popular. But many-cores will catch up.

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

It seems I don't understand how you evaluate whether these IGPs are good or not. Is it by gaming potential?

I know that very well. Intel wasn't happy with it's performance as GPU, so they turned it into a coprocessor. A damn good one.

And I wouldn't call them "niche and circumstantial". They're just very specialized.
The idea of many-core processors is getting a lot of traction in the top500 list.
29 computers use Xeon Phi (20 in top100)
by comparison:
87 computers use NVIDIA Tesla (19 in top100)

Not bad, right?

And there are a few other many-core contenders (Sunway, PEZY etc).
It's a very good idea in general. It's just that host CPU-only solutions are easier to code for and CUDA got very, very popular. But many-cores will catch up.

Total potential, I use them every single day for like 12-14hrs a day, try playing player unknown on one or forza or doom or deus ex or playing some films(Most work, most) or the latest game out or look i could go on but im not changing your mind so nah.

And you wouldn't call super computer's niche.

And the science , research and database crunching they do is typical use case.


I don't search Google before every ,or any reply ,i just remember what I've seen and done and some workloads won't be accelerated by more cpu cores ,shit you and a million others are all about ipc and more cores being a waste in any other thread but here more is better, no the right core for the job ,ie graphics will always be better then a great many x86 cores on a chip ,intel already provided the proof about three times that i actually lived through ,i remember intel poo pooing add in card graphics in the pentium era and a few times since ,only once with an actual gpu though ,their Hd era igp , so in short bring it intel.
Don't talk about it 3-5 years early , just effin do it, i would love three discreet gpu makers ,please do bring it , but till then stfu intel ,and pay your damn bills on time to Amd not like your throwback compo payments, i want them healthy too , all the big pc three healthy and wealthy and INNOVATIVE.

Quit the pr job for intel dude your crap at it.

 

[Totally]

Again, big corporations don't like being dependent on others. It's why Samsung basically makes everything themselves for phones, from chipsets, CPU's, batteries, screens, hell, Samsung even has foundries for light and heavy metallurgy, they probably even create aluminium frames themselves for the phones and devices. Same for Apple, more and more internal parts are made by them because they don't want to rely on Samsung for it. Intel is no different. Collaborations are not uncommon, but they are usually short term stuff that usually ends up in internal production with same capabilities as the outsourced part. And when they do it, they prefer to keep it for themselves and not outsource it, which is why AMD's decision to sell stuff to Intel felt kinda weird. GPU's were one of huge things that made Intel offerings look like a joke. It's a short term money, but long term it's a very bad investment if you ask me. Unless you're fabless company like ARM where all your R&D has to be sold to others. Then it's all about selling stuff to "competition".

Samsung is a bad example since it has long outgrown the label of a company into a conglomerate, also an exception as it literally owns probably 75% of Korea(yes, a hyperbole but probably not too far off the mark) it's verical integration is probably a byproduct of them owning nearly everything and not a specific desire.

 

[Slizzo]

Same for Apple, more and more internal parts are made by them because they don't want to rely on Samsung for it.

Apple doesn't make anything. They design everything in California, and then it's all assembled in China at Foxconn. Using Samsung parts among others.

 

[notb]

Samsung is a bad example since it has long outgrown the label of a company into a conglomerate, also an exception as it literally owns probably 75% of Korea(yes, a hyperbole but probably not too far off the mark) it's verical integration is probably a byproduct of them owning nearly everything and not a specific desire.

Samsung makes 20% of Korean GDP, so yes - their impact on the country is great.
So this is weird for outsiders, but not unheard of in Korea. They have more examples of chaebols: Hyundai, SK Group, LG, Lotte and so on. The economy is run by ~10 or so large groups.
Not so long ago Daewoo was the second largest group in Korea, but they've went bankrupt. In fact many chaebols went down in 90s. It's not the best business concept.

For some reason Korean groups like to invest in Poland, so I've been interested in the problem for some time.
It started with the now-defunct Daewoo...

 

[Gasaraki]

I wonder how much they will pay AMD for technology, or how much they will get sued for.

Intel did not go with a cross license for the Vega GPU. They bought the chips finished and just put them on their own interposer. So they didn't pay anything to AMD for their technology and are not getting sued.