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  • lemurbutton - Monday, August 16, 2021 - link

    GPU market for laptops and desktops is about to get a lot more competition.

    Intel Xe/Arc and Apple Silicon. Bloomberg is reporting that Apple is working on a 128-core GPU. Since GPU scaling is mostly linear, that's a 41.6 tflops GPU from Apple if we base it off of the M1's 2.6 tflops 8-core GPU.
  • drajitshnew - Monday, August 16, 2021 - link

    hopefully, it will be actually available to purchase-- at a reasonable price.
  • Yojimbo - Monday, August 16, 2021 - link

    Apple's GPU will only be available in Apple products. Basically it will just push AMD out of Apple's systems.
  • NextGen_Gamer - Monday, August 16, 2021 - link

    @ Ryan Smith: I feel like you failed to mention what was to me at least the most interesting part of Intel's press release: that "Alchemist"/Intel Arc will offer hardware-based ray tracing and *full* support of DirectX 12 Ultimate. Full support implying that Arc will have Variable Rate Shading, Sampler Feedback and Mesh Shaders to go along with that hardware Ray Tracing. To me at least, all of those were on the iffy/will-it-or-won't-it have actual hardware support for those things, so getting official confirmation from Intel makes Arc a lot more interesting from the get-go.
  • Ryan Smith - Monday, August 16, 2021 - link

    This is one of those things where, at least from my perspective, full DX12U compatibility has a given for the past year. There's little sense in just implementing ray tracing without implementing the rest - especially as Intel intends to be feature competitive.

    So this isn't too much of a revelation to me. But you're right in that it's something that warrants mentioning.
  • Alistair - Monday, August 16, 2021 - link

    ray tracing only means something with good performance, if Intel has better than nVidia ray tracing performance I'm interested, but with worse than AMD performance? support is not meaningful imo
  • Dakhil - Monday, August 16, 2021 - link

    I think you should mention that Anton Kaplanyan joined Intel this month as vice president of graphics research. He was a former research scientist at Nvidia and a former lead research scientist at Facebook.
  • Matthias B V - Monday, August 16, 2021 - link

    Well it does not really matter. Anyone that joined a company won't have real impact on the technology for at least 2-3 years. Whatever CPU/GPU comes out in 2022/23 is more ore less on its way...

    Whoever Intel hires will be responsible for 23/24 and later products!
  • mode_13h - Monday, August 16, 2021 - link

    Why do you assume his only (or even his primary) contributions will be in the hardware? He seems like a software guy. Most computer graphics researchers are software-oriented.

    http://kaplanyan.com/
  • Yojimbo - Monday, August 16, 2021 - link

    What's the big deal? Of course Intel is going to be looking for scientists to pursue research in real-time rendering since they plan to enter that area of the market now. Anton was one of several people working on real-time rendering techniques at NVIDIA from 2015 to 2017, including Aaron Lefohn, David Luebke, Marco Salvi, Anjul Patney, Chris Wyman, and Cyril Crassin, and most of them, including all the ones I've named, have stayed at NVIDIA. No one talks about any of those other guys and no one noticed when Anton moved to facebook, and why would they? If William Dally moved to Intel that would be worth mentioning because he'd likely pull a lot of people with him in the future.
  • mode_13h - Monday, August 16, 2021 - link

    At least some of the interest might be related to the 2020 paper he co-authored:

    https://research.fb.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06...

    Sound familiar?
  • n0x1ous - Monday, August 16, 2021 - link

    Great! More GPU's that Anandtech wont review!
  • Hifihedgehog - Monday, August 16, 2021 - link

    LOL
  • sandtitz - Monday, August 16, 2021 - link

    An Intel product? Anandtech will be the very first tech sites to review it, with a sneak preview article a few months earlier and finally an interview with someone@Intel with softball non-critical questions.

    I'm expecting these adapters the get at least 200 fps in World of Tanks @480p and other super meaningful benchmarks, perhaps cramming AVX512 in there as well.
  • mode_13h - Monday, August 16, 2021 - link

    > 200 fps in World of Tanks @480p and other super meaningful benchmarks

    They only do that for CPU benchmarks, and just to tease out the minor differences in CPU gaming performance.

    The equivalent, for a GPU, would be to render in like 4k or 8k @ Ultra quality.
  • Mr Perfect - Monday, August 16, 2021 - link

    They've been trying to hire a GPU reviewer, among other things, as far back as April's call for writers, but they apparently didn't find anyone.

    I submitted something to the call myself, it would have been nice to hear their thoughts on it just to know how badly I'd done.
  • mode_13h - Monday, August 16, 2021 - link

    I'll bet Igor Wallossek would write reviews for them, on contract. Toms Hardware used him for a while, until they got that awful editor in chief.

    https://www.igorslab.de/en/author/igor-wallossek/
  • Slash3 - Tuesday, August 17, 2021 - link

    Igor does good work, but is far too grumpy for even AnandTech.
  • webdoctors - Monday, August 16, 2021 - link

    haha, finally a comment worth upvoting.
  • powerarmour - Monday, August 16, 2021 - link

    Actually, we'll probably get a review this time because it's Intel.
  • mode_13h - Monday, August 16, 2021 - link

    :D
  • Great_Scott - Monday, August 16, 2021 - link

    To be fair, there's not much out there to review that's currently relevant.

    Although an article for testing refurbished ex-mining cards would be topical.
  • mode_13h - Tuesday, August 17, 2021 - link

    To be fair? To be fair, the last deep dive they did was on Xe-LP. Nothing on RDNA 2 or Ampere!
  • mode_13h - Tuesday, August 17, 2021 - link

    And that was a little over a year ago!
  • Silver5urfer - Monday, August 16, 2021 - link

    PR marketing by Intel just to keep the hype going. And this probably should be on TSMC ? So more GPU stock problems confirmed. Also look how they are throwing everything - RT, VRS, Mesh Shading, AI literally all of the things. And Raja Koduri is going to spin his magic into something that will beat Nvidia and AMD ? lol sounds like their naming series of fantasy.
  • Hifihedgehog - Monday, August 16, 2021 - link

    Just remember this is Raja "Poor Volta" Koduri, who is also notorious for squandering money on party buses and who loves dumping money on other vices (drinks and cigars) for "PR events."
  • mode_13h - Monday, August 16, 2021 - link

    > And Raja Koduri is going to spin his magic

    You mean like he did with Polaris and Vega? I think Nvidia isn't too worried.
  • rmfx - Monday, August 16, 2021 - link

    That’s a better name than Xe at least !

    Now we want to see serious performances.
  • mode_13h - Monday, August 16, 2021 - link

    It's a better name *unless* sparks actually start flying (a la the Gigabyte PSU debacle, of late). Then, it will seem prophetic, and not in a good way.

    But yeah, it's actually not a bad name, at least considering some of the gems Intel's marketing department has excreted in the past.
  • badger2k - Monday, August 16, 2021 - link

    Any extra competition in the GPU space is good competition.
  • DigitalFreak - Monday, August 16, 2021 - link

    True, but don't expect it in the high end of the market. From what's known so far Intel's top GPU will be lucky to hit around the GTX 3070 performance level.
  • Mr Perfect - Monday, August 16, 2021 - link

    Honestly, that would be fine for most people. The halo products grab the attention, but the most sales are in the mid range space, xx70 or xx60 series parts.

    Personally, I'll be judging their success on power efficiency. If Arc draws xx80 levels of power to deliver xx70 levels of performance, forget it.
  • mode_13h - Monday, August 16, 2021 - link

    > The halo products grab the attention, but the most sales are in the mid range space

    This reminds me of what AMD was saying, back when Polaris launched. It's not a bad excuse to tell yourself, but being competitive in the top tier is worth more than just the revenue it brings in. It nets you mindshare and probably more interest from game developers.
  • Wereweeb - Tuesday, August 17, 2021 - link

    I'm a consumer, not part of Intel's marketing team. I don't give a single crap about Intel's mindshare. I just want cheaper GPU's.
  • mode_13h - Monday, August 16, 2021 - link

    > If Arc draws xx80 levels of power to deliver xx70 levels of performance, forget it.

    It's rumored to draw 275 W.
  • Spunjji - Tuesday, August 17, 2021 - link

    Based on the efficiency (or lack thereof) of Xe LP vs. Vega, I wouldn't be too surprised by that - although there's a big question-mark over how much more efficient the architecture gets on a decently-performing node.
  • Yojimbo - Monday, August 16, 2021 - link

    It doesn't seem like Alchemist is likely to be all that relevant. It's going to become available just a few months before NVIDIA releases a new generation of GPUs. Maybe if they are able to turn out a significant number of cards into a market facing a severe shortage... But this is Intel's first foray for a long time and I doubt they have the partnership ecosystem optimized in terms of board manufacturers and OEM validation and selection of their products, nor do they likely have a driver team as agile as the established players. Perhaps Battlemage will be better positioned for some sort of disruption if it can come out a year after Alchemist and not two years.
  • MikeMurphy - Monday, August 16, 2021 - link

    Intel already has all of the components necessary to launch a very successful dGPU product. Contrary to popular opinion their integrated GPUs pack quite a punch relative to die size and are well supported by almost all titles. I would buy Intel in a heartbeat if the value is there.
  • Hifihedgehog - Monday, August 16, 2021 - link

    Barely matching Vega/GCN is not a good comparison. In the discrete market, it has to go up against RDNA2/Navi and Ampere and soon their successors which offer significantly higher IPC and performance/watt. I am not so convinced it will be Intel will be that good scaled up. But it will be a guaranteed to sell if the market is like it is right now, at least.
  • mode_13h - Monday, August 16, 2021 - link

    But most of the software work from their iGPUs can be leveraged, both on the part of their driver team and of games to optimize for Tiger Lake & Rocket Lake.

    Plus, it's Intel. Most enthusiast Intel motherboard makers are also in the graphics card business.

    Intel can also afford to sell it at an attractive price. They've shown a willingness to take big losses, in order to enter a new market. I think it'll do alright.
  • Spunjji - Tuesday, August 17, 2021 - link

    "They've shown a willingness to take big losses, in order to enter a new market."
    This would be the one time in history that I wouldn't be mad about them doing that. The GPU market has a lot of fat to be trimmed off.

    If they show up a day late and a dollar short and ask for similar pricing, a-la 5700 XT, I'm going to be pretty pissed off.
  • Spunjji - Tuesday, August 17, 2021 - link

    "Contrary to popular opinion their integrated GPUs pack quite a punch relative to die size"
    33% more size on the die vs. Vega 8 for ~25% more performance (at best, when the drivers aren't working their dark magick). That's not a terrible showing, but it's not too promising when the grown-up version will be competing with RDNA 2 and Ampere.
  • MikeMurphy - Monday, August 16, 2021 - link

    I wonder if Intel is going to target the professional crowd by not artificially crippling their product for segmentation in the professional space, like FP64 performance etc. Nvidia and AMD are notorious for this to sell their more-expensive Quadro and FirePro cards.
  • mode_13h - Monday, August 16, 2021 - link

    > crippling their product for segmentation in the professional space, like FP64 performance

    In Gen11, they cut back the fp64 units in their iGPUs by a lot. So, that's a clear sign that they're not going to waste silicon on it, in gaming-oriented products.

    > Nvidia and AMD are notorious for this

    Not really. Nvidia kept the full fp64 performance of their V100 in the Titan V. That was the only example of a GPU with real fp64 capability sold to "gamers" since Kepler. It's not even clear if A100 has graphics or display hardware on it, so it might never happen again. The only recent example of them crippling anything is when they cut the performance of certain Tensor operations by half, in their gaming GPUs.

    As for AMD, the last time they did anything like that was Radeon VII. In that case, they cut the fp64 performance in half. The only other thing they cut was the PCIe from 4.0 to 3.0. After that hardware generation, they followed Nvidia's lead and split their compute-oriented and gaming silicon into completely different architectures.

    In general, workstation cards tend to be slower than their gaming counterparts. The main hardware benefit is usually more RAM. The high price you're paying is for support, and certification for use with high-end professional software with license costs that make even workstation hardware seem cheap.
  • Markjinli - Monday, August 16, 2021 - link

    in 2001.one gpu name is call ART(Advanced Rendering Technology) they have a graghy card name"PURE".it can let 3dsMax MAYAbe fast。but they lose.and then ART join intel. now the Intel ARC is inherit ART?
  • name99 - Monday, August 16, 2021 - link

    nVidia: We'll name our GPUs after Volta, Turing, Maxwell, Pascal.

    Intel: Screw that, we're naming our GPUs after Alchemist, Astrologer, Phrenologist, Homeopath. We know what our customers believe in...
  • mode_13h - Monday, August 16, 2021 - link

    :D

    I lost it at Phrenologist! Thanks for that!
  • mode_13h - Monday, August 16, 2021 - link

    Given the decidedly RPG theme of their product codenames and this being the first gen, Arc the Lad seems a fitting moniker:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arc_the_Lad
  • TristanSDX - Monday, August 16, 2021 - link

    'Alchemist SoCs will be available in desktops and notebooks from global partners in Q1 2022" - this may mean that it will be OEM product, at least initially, so no separate graphics cards.
  • Spunjji - Tuesday, August 17, 2021 - link

    I have a strong suspicion this will be the case, at least initially. Easier for them to push it to OEMs as part of a bundle, might help shore up their market share on the CPU side.
  • Alexvrb - Monday, August 16, 2021 - link

    Well if nothing else it should help make it a bit easier to obtain entry/mid level Nvidia and AMD cards at somewhat reasonable prices.
  • Igor_Kavinski - Tuesday, August 17, 2021 - link

    Which game is the end scene from in the Intel ARC "Let's Play" video? Kinda looks like a future Crysis.

    Also, I hope that Intel does everything itself rather than have AIB partners. Yes, it will be boring in terms of less variety but at least that way we get Intel's renowned product reliability.
  • zodiacfml - Tuesday, August 17, 2021 - link

    tweeted Raja to focus on lower end cards as driver development is going to be hell. if they could make these cards run well on crypto mining, then it will be huge win for everyone while they polish their drivers.
  • Cullinaire - Tuesday, August 17, 2021 - link

    Dang I wish they named it glaze3d
  • mode_13h - Friday, August 20, 2021 - link

    That strikes me as a distinctly 90's sort of name.
  • mode_13h - Saturday, August 21, 2021 - link

    Thinking about it more, I can see a nice logo for it. You could have a wireframe torus blending into a glazed donut. And maybe Homer Simpson looking on, in the background, with his hands outstretched and his mouth half-open.

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