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" 2017, the year GPU’s finally begin to permanently displace the venerated x86 based CPU" he never specifies what he means by displace exactly, and follows up

" 2017, the year GPU’s finally begin to permanently displace the venerated x86 based CPU" he never specifies what he means by displace exactly, and follows up with vacuous statements like "x86 party ends in 2017". The entire thing sounds like trying to manufacture a momentous event out of a gradual shift of market profits and priorities over time. Best you could hope for is to state that Intel has failed to take a significant market in high end throughput computing (ie. desktop and HPC GPUs), but its doing quite well with integrated GPUs. Don't forget this is the same visionary that wrote the game industry playbook on how to hire and exploit developers: https://www.kotaku.com.au/2016/04/alex-st-johns-ideas-about-game-development-are-terrifying/ https://www.kotaku.com.au/2016/04/alex-st-johns-ideas-about-...

ballenf 9y ago
Even gradual events have recognizable tipping points or points of no return. I think that is what he is calling 2017 for the gradual transition from CPU dominance to the future of GPU/FPGA dominance. Or just CPU irrelevance. Don't know how that article you link has any relevance to the facts and analysis he presents here.
gambiting 9y ago
It's the same as calling 20XX "year of linux" for the n-th time. Sure there is a gradual shift and things are getting better, but X86 is not dead, just like windows is still doing fine.
- II2II 9y ago
  If you are trying to compare it to the year of Linux, it would be wise to look at how the market changed in general rather than how the market changed for Microsoft. Linux did not decimate Windows, but it has certainly hurt other platforms and it has likely hurt Microsoft's reach. Likewise, I doubt that GPGPU applications will decimate Intel. It will likely hurt Intel's reach. This is particularly true if AMD, ARM, and IBM are facilitating the use of to GPU as a high performance coprocessor.
lnanek2 9y ago
It's very wordy and takes a lot of reading, but he does have a pretty solid point. 1) He is talking about enterprise computing, and makes that clear with: " Up until now Intel has held a dominant monopoly over Enterprise computing for many years, successfully fending off all challengers to their supremacy in the Enterprise computing space. This dominance is ending this year and the market sees it coming. " So integrated graphics like you mention is irrelevant. Then at the end he lists why he thinks that with links: Softbank bought ARM and funded NVIDIA, who announced an ARM & NVIDIA integrated enterprise computing product. IBM is supporting NVIDIA with a POWER and NVIDIA integrated enterprise computing product, and AMD is supporting NVIDIA in Ryzen by providing lots of PCIe bandwidth to the graphics card to support compute tasks.
- fulafel 9y ago
  Enterprise is just an euphemism for clunky corporate IT platforms like SAP/Oracle/SharePoint/Windows, quite distant from Nvidia's field.
  - jlg23 9y ago
    Just a month ago: "NVIDIA and SAP Partner to Create a New Wave of AI Business Applications" https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2017/05/10/nvidia-sap-partner/ https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2017/05/10/nvidia-sap-partner/
    - coldtea 9y ago
      Actual translation: SAP and NVIDIA partner to milk the fad for all its worth -- it wont amount to much in the grand scheme of things, as it's an inconsequential part of enterprise computing.
- XorNot 9y ago
  Except AMD own ATI which is their own GPU brand. So no, they're doing that because they want to move GPUs and they'll want those GPUs to be AMD ones.
  - 9y ago
Cacti 9y ago
How is his views on hiring relevant to his analysis on hardware trends?
- TheRealDunkirk 9y ago
  If anything, it helps to reinforce his credibility on the GPU issue. Sure, he's a cretin for taking advantage of the young, inexperienced, and under-socialized, but there is a lot of personally-validatible truth in those insights.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
kbenson 9y ago
Ugh, his slides from that Kotaku article are especially cringeworthy. The perception of that type of attitude from management is what causes unions to form. He's right out front with a playbook how to exploit your employees.
david-cako 9y ago
Are the slides from the kotaku post really that bad? I mean the one on girlfriends/wives is pretty nasty (although has a nugget of truth), but the rest of it seems reasonably valid. It doesn't seem as "exploitative" as kotaku is trying to color it, it's just a rational take on hiring practices that the vast majority of the world ignores in exchange for hiring degrees and certificates.
- dahart 9y ago
  They look pretty bad to me, and I skipped most of Kotaku's commentary and analysis. FWIW, I've done 10 years in games, gone through 5 games crunches that were longer than 6 months each. "Coding is NOT WORK. People who think it is aren't real software engineers." That's some highly macho driven bullshit that is untrue and somewhat meaningless to boot. People who think coding is not real work should be able to easily hire a AAA title producing team without paying them anything. Yeah, good luck. Same slide "High expectations, long hours, new challenges and a customer/market driven mission are motivating for real engineers." There's no reason that "long hours" needs to be in that sentence, and no evidence that it's true. These sentences on this slide are working to rationalize uncompensated hours of work. "The Young the Old and the Useless" is downright inflammatory, even if there are elements of truth. It's negative stereotyping to suggest good engineers have no social skills, can't make eye contact, and will marry the first girl they can. The last sentence suggest's their value is high because they will keep a job regardless of the working conditions. If that's true, it's immoral to exploit. There are some people who aren't good communicators and who won't quit a bad job unless it's really extremely bad. But personally, I don't believe that the best hires are the antisocial engineers that won't stick up for themselves. The best hires are the people that have both good engineering and good communication skills. The best hires are the ones that are hard to keep because they have good options and aren't afraid to take them. The only reason to prefer people who don't change jobs and don't stick up for themselves is because it's easier than being a good manager. The stuff on these slides is perpetuating the problems that are causing crunch times in the games industry. These ideas aren't forward looking, they aren't setting goals for being better at making games or building healthy companies. These slides are making excuses for taking the cheap way out by exploiting engineers. This isn't just bad in the unethical way, it's also deeply lazy.
Allower 9y ago
Oh man, a human making stories out of mundane occurrences! How dare they.
CamperBob2 9y ago
GPU computing is economically feasible only because the PC and console gaming markets subsidize it. FPGAs are powerful resources for certain I/O-intensive tasks, but -- at least until VR takes over Real Soon Now -- they have no mainstream appeal to game developers. So we won't see the kind of organic growth in FPGA computing that we've seen from GPUs over the last 10-15 years. If Intel is counting on that, they (and their stockholders) are in for disappointment.

ballenf 9y ago

Even gradual events have recognizable tipping points or points of no return. I think that is what he is calling 2017 for the gradual transition from CPU dominance to the future of GPU/FPGA dominance. Or just CPU irrelevance. Don't know how that article you link has any relevance to the facts and analysis he presents here.

gambiting 9y ago

It's the same as calling 20XX "year of linux" for the n-th time. Sure there is a gradual shift and things are getting better, but X86 is not dead, just like windows is still doing fine.

II2II 9y ago
If you are trying to compare it to the year of Linux, it would be wise to look at how the market changed in general rather than how the market changed for Microsoft. Linux did not decimate Windows, but it has certainly hurt other platforms and it has likely hurt Microsoft's reach. Likewise, I doubt that GPGPU applications will decimate Intel. It will likely hurt Intel's reach. This is particularly true if AMD, ARM, and IBM are facilitating the use of to GPU as a high performance coprocessor.

lnanek2 9y ago

It's very wordy and takes a lot of reading, but he does have a pretty solid point. 1) He is talking about enterprise computing, and makes that clear with: " Up until now Intel has held a dominant monopoly over Enterprise computing for many years, successfully fending off all challengers to their supremacy in the Enterprise computing space. This dominance is ending this year and the market sees it coming. " So integrated graphics like you mention is irrelevant. Then at the end he lists why he thinks that with links: Softbank bought ARM and funded NVIDIA, who announced an ARM & NVIDIA integrated enterprise computing product. IBM is supporting NVIDIA with a POWER and NVIDIA integrated enterprise computing product, and AMD is supporting NVIDIA in Ryzen by providing lots of PCIe bandwidth to the graphics card to support compute tasks.

fulafel 9y ago
Enterprise is just an euphemism for clunky corporate IT platforms like SAP/Oracle/SharePoint/Windows, quite distant from Nvidia's field.
- jlg23 9y ago
  Just a month ago: "NVIDIA and SAP Partner to Create a New Wave of AI Business Applications" https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2017/05/10/nvidia-sap-partner/ https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2017/05/10/nvidia-sap-partner/
  - coldtea 9y ago
    Actual translation: SAP and NVIDIA partner to milk the fad for all its worth -- it wont amount to much in the grand scheme of things, as it's an inconsequential part of enterprise computing.
XorNot 9y ago
Except AMD own ATI which is their own GPU brand. So no, they're doing that because they want to move GPUs and they'll want those GPUs to be AMD ones.
- 9y ago

Cacti 9y ago

How is his views on hiring relevant to his analysis on hardware trends?

TheRealDunkirk 9y ago
If anything, it helps to reinforce his credibility on the GPU issue. Sure, he's a cretin for taking advantage of the young, inexperienced, and under-socialized, but there is a lot of personally-validatible truth in those insights.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]

kbenson 9y ago

Ugh, his slides from that Kotaku article are especially cringeworthy. The perception of that type of attitude from management is what causes unions to form. He's right out front with a playbook how to exploit your employees.

david-cako 9y ago

Are the slides from the kotaku post really that bad? I mean the one on girlfriends/wives is pretty nasty (although has a nugget of truth), but the rest of it seems reasonably valid. It doesn't seem as "exploitative" as kotaku is trying to color it, it's just a rational take on hiring practices that the vast majority of the world ignores in exchange for hiring degrees and certificates.

dahart 9y ago
They look pretty bad to me, and I skipped most of Kotaku's commentary and analysis. FWIW, I've done 10 years in games, gone through 5 games crunches that were longer than 6 months each. "Coding is NOT WORK. People who think it is aren't real software engineers." That's some highly macho driven bullshit that is untrue and somewhat meaningless to boot. People who think coding is not real work should be able to easily hire a AAA title producing team without paying them anything. Yeah, good luck. Same slide "High expectations, long hours, new challenges and a customer/market driven mission are motivating for real engineers." There's no reason that "long hours" needs to be in that sentence, and no evidence that it's true. These sentences on this slide are working to rationalize uncompensated hours of work. "The Young the Old and the Useless" is downright inflammatory, even if there are elements of truth. It's negative stereotyping to suggest good engineers have no social skills, can't make eye contact, and will marry the first girl they can. The last sentence suggest's their value is high because they will keep a job regardless of the working conditions. If that's true, it's immoral to exploit. There are some people who aren't good communicators and who won't quit a bad job unless it's really extremely bad. But personally, I don't believe that the best hires are the antisocial engineers that won't stick up for themselves. The best hires are the people that have both good engineering and good communication skills. The best hires are the ones that are hard to keep because they have good options and aren't afraid to take them. The only reason to prefer people who don't change jobs and don't stick up for themselves is because it's easier than being a good manager. The stuff on these slides is perpetuating the problems that are causing crunch times in the games industry. These ideas aren't forward looking, they aren't setting goals for being better at making games or building healthy companies. These slides are making excuses for taking the cheap way out by exploiting engineers. This isn't just bad in the unethical way, it's also deeply lazy.

Allower 9y ago

Oh man, a human making stories out of mundane occurrences! How dare they.

CamperBob2 9y ago

GPU computing is economically feasible only because the PC and console gaming markets subsidize it. FPGAs are powerful resources for certain I/O-intensive tasks, but -- at least until VR takes over Real Soon Now -- they have no mainstream appeal to game developers. So we won't see the kind of organic growth in FPGA computing that we've seen from GPUs over the last 10-15 years. If Intel is counting on that, they (and their stockholders) are in for disappointment.