It's been interesting to see how the industry's giants try and find ways to rejuvenate themselves with blood from other companies - and there's got to be no better feeling than taking someone from under a competitor's mantle. It's the old two kills with one stone adage, really: one reinforces one's position by hampering a competitors'. But until now, it seemed most high-profile movements between AMD and Intel were a game of squash, with Intel claiming AMD's chief graphics division experts such as Raja Koduri and Chris Hook.

Now, AMD has seemingly turned the game into a sort of tennis encounter, having successfully headhunted Intel's Martin Ashton, formerly "Vice President, Core and Visual Computing Group, Chief Engineer, VTT and Director of Hardware and Co-Director of Architecture, VPG at Intel." Martin Ashton, as the extensive position descriptor somewhat cloudily states, was an important piece of Intel's overall graphics strategy - though arguably not as important as the players Intel snagged from AMD. Still, Martin Ashton has long-standing roots on the graphics landscape, particularly at Imagination Technologies; and AMD's David Wang seems to think he's a great fit for the team - and AMD's vision. He's now part of AMD as Corporate Vice President.Martin Ashton, left, and David Wang, right

After Raja Koduri left AMD in a low-profile-turned-high-profile leave of absence, ending up as head for rival Intel's newly formed Core and Visual Computing Group, now it's time for another high-level player to leave the company. AMD's Chris Hook has been in the company for almost two decades, rising from the bottom up towards the enviable position (at times) to lead the entire AMD's Radeon Technologies' Group Marketing Department since October 2017.

In a Facebook post detailing his departure, Hook joked that when he first joined the company, "ATI still had a smoking room, there was only one TV in the office (a small 14" black and white version we crowded into a room to watch 9/11 on), transistor size was still measured in microns, and 320x240 was considered 'high res'." Chris Hook has led (or been in the next closest position) as the public-facing effort of ATI/AMD-RTG and AMD core marketing team for a while now, so him leaving the company at a time where the global GPU marketshare is better than it ever has been in years does give some food for thought. Some publications are speculating on a move from AMD to Intel, similar to Raja Koduri's, citing close relationships between both men and the need for Intel to eventually market some products originating from their Core and Visual Computing Group (maybe with Arctic Sound?)