Intel Xe Kicks the Door Open to Challenge the GeForce-Radeon Duopoly

[John Naylor]

I am mildly excited about this announcement, at least we get a three legged race.

It's already a 3 legged race ... Of the 20 most popular GPUs hitting steam servers, ....

17 are nVidia cards
1 is the entire AMD R7 series combined
2 are Intel (4000 and Haswell)

nVidia = 74.11%
Intel = 10.53%
AMD = 15.21%

We need 400$ price for top dog cards back again.

The cost of the top card has changed little since the year 2000 ... excepting the nVidia 20xx series of course. But there's a lot of market factors in play here .... a) new tech b) low yields c) tariffs in US, d) excess 10xx inventory e) no competition as yet in the xx60 to xx80 Ti range

https://images.hardocp.com/images/news/1489189662xrJkzvohX8_1_1.png

Yes, there were lulls dipping around $500, but those cards were not exactly exciting.

 

[BorgOvermind]

The title is exaggerated.

Intel is at least 5 generations behind in graphics. They cannot spawn a product to compete with Radeons and GeForces.

It's about time they improve this part, but it's hard work and they are way behind. Perhaps in 10 years they will be closer to the top, but at this moment it is not possible.

 

[StrayKAT]

The title is exaggerated.

Intel is at least 5 generations behind in graphics. They cannot spawn a product to compete with Radeons and GeForces.

It's about time they improve this part, but it's hard work and they are way behind. Perhaps in 10 years they will be closer to the top, but at this moment it is not possible.

It's not the company itself that needs the experience. It just needs to lure the people who already have it. From the sounds of it, it looks like they're doing just that. And they're already partly in the game on the manufacturing end.

Besides that, they are huge. I think I read they have like 30,000 employees working in Software alone. People don't even think of Intel as a software company, but that's like the size of AMD's total workforce. There's bound to be a lot of talent there already.

 

[craigo]

It's not the company itself that needs the experience. It just needs to lure the people who already have it. From the sounds of it, it looks like they're doing just that. And they're already partly in the game on the manufacturing end.

Besides that, they are huge. I think I read they have like 30,000 employees working in Software alone. People don't even think of Intel as a software company, but that's like the size of AMD's total workforce. There's bound to be a lot of talent there already.

 

[BorgOvermind]

@StrayKAT, their yearly research budget used to be more that the whole AMD yearly income. And they still got defeated in the CPU market.

 

[bug]

@StrayKAT, their yearly research budget used to be more that the whole AMD yearly income. And they still got defeated in the CPU market.

True, but not all of that budget was going towards CPUs. And "defeated in the CPU market" is a limited view. Intel got defeated in core count, but in an increasingly more mobile world, AMD still has a long way to go

 

[StrayKAT]

@StrayKAT, their yearly research budget used to be more that the whole AMD yearly income. And they still got defeated in the CPU market.

Are they really defeated? Like I mentioned somewhere earlier, I just think they screwed up Intel's product strategy. They've always had high core CPUs (HEDT).. but now they've shifted that to the consumer line to answer AMD.. screwing up their HEDT offerings a little.

But both companies are doing well afaik.

 

[EarthDog]

I dont think its screwing anything up outside of pushing core count up on both the mainstream and HEDT platforms. More cores is the new norm.

 

[BorgOvermind]

@bug Next year intel is out of the server CPU area. Practically, they will have no advantage whatsoever compared to AMD. Only marketing and/or heavy price drops will keep them competitive.
I detailed this with other occasions too. Let me remind that:

In 2019 AMD Server CPUs will have:
- more cores
- more memory channels
- more PCIe lanes
- a fraction of the cost of Intel's
- less energy needed to run
- better scalability
- more features (Secure Memory Encryption and Secure Encrypted Virtualization, Codescaling)
- more flexibility
- a functional process to build it on
- process lead
- support for PCI-E v4


Intel will have:

- nice powerpoints
- very good marketing
- broken SGX

 

[bug]

@bug Next year intel is out of the server CPU area. Practically, they will have no advantage whatsoever compared to AMD. Only marketing and/or heavy price drops will keep them competitive.
I detailed this with other occasions too. Let me remind that:

In 2019 AMD Server CPUs will have:
- more cores
- more memory channels
- more PCIe lanes
- a fraction of the cost of Intel's
- less energy needed to run
- better scalability
- more features (Secure Memory Encryption and Secure Encrypted Virtualization, Codescaling)
- more flexibility
- a functional process to build it on
- process lead
- support for PCI-E v4


Intel will have:

- nice powerpoints
- very good marketing
- broken SGX

That's one way to look at it, I guess. You get bonus points for mentioning power draw (when talking video cards I'm told repeatedly power draw doesn't matter) and manufacturing process (AMD has no manufacturing capabilities of their own anymore).

 

[Jism]

Powerdraw in servers does matter. If you rent a rack or part of a rack (rackspace) your paying for every amp your pulling with your server(s). So doing more with less is always handy within server space!

Esp AMD with so many cores come extremely handy within virtualisation.

 

[StrayKAT]

I dont think its screwing anything up outside of pushing core count up on both the mainstream and HEDT platforms. More cores is the new norm.

I just mean upping the defacto consumer norm to 8 now. Which is probably something they wouldn't have on their own anytime soon? HEDT battle is now with threadripper specifically, I guess.

I'm not complaining though.

 

[TheDeeGee]

Depends on the price, should be 50% below nVidia.

 

[killferd]

K version lets you overclock I've heard.

This had me in splits.

 

[matar]

Great News more competition the better for us = lower prices I hope we go back to $499-$599 standards for the highest end GPU pricing because $1200 for a RTX 2080Ti is ridicules.

 

[gamerman]

intel challenge nvidia, NOT amd, bcox amd has so lausy gpus.

2020 we see only 2 real gpu bilders, intel and nvidia.

 

[$ReaPeR$]

kewl! lets see what they will manage to do. i really hope they make something decent, more choices in the gpu market is a very welcome "gift".

 

[TheGuruStud]

I didn't know intel was entering the special olympics of hardware. Bless their little hearts. They think they can make a real GPU.

 

[bajs11]

i hope it wont be just another "gaming" card that costs ~700 usd and draws 300W+

 

[Deleted member 158293]

Well, intel is never cheap, so it'll interesting to see how high they can go.

 

[bajs11]

Well, intel is never cheap, so it'll interesting to see how high they can go.

well they must be high to charge 500 usd for mainstream cpus
at least thats what the newer i7 cost nowadays...
but of course us consumers have to be really really stoned to actually buy them

 

[Deleted member 158293]

well they must be high to charge 500 usd for mainstream cpus
at least thats what the newer i7 cost nowadays...
but of course us consumers have to be really really stoned to actually buy them

CAREFUL!

Branding and Marketing are the consumer's drug of choice to create self delusion and buy into anything!

 

[medi01]

Only marketing and/or heavy price drops will keep them competitive.

Check MSI CEO's interview. Those "special relationships" are still there.
On top of consumers not switching providers that easily.

Intel will still dominate server market, despite AMD having vastly superior product.

Are they really defeated?

Not as a whole, but at some fights. E.g. Zen using worse fab process, but beating Core's on perf/watt (at similar perf)

Still, AMD will need a streak of magical surprises like Zen's 53% IPC bump (over Buldozer) and, perhaps more importantly, multiple consecutive years with good enough products, to really shatter Intel's dominance.

Besides that, they are huge. I think I read they have like 30,000 employees working in Software alone. People don't even think of Intel as a software company, but that's like the size of AMD's total workforce. There's bound to be a lot of talent there already.

That only shows how ineffective monopolies become.