6 ms·

Yeah! People say AMD has the best Linux drivers, but they're wrong! Intel's are feature rich and stable, and I think they're better than AMD's [1]. They're just

by DCKing 6y ago

Yeah! People say AMD has the best Linux drivers, but they're wrong! Intel's are feature rich and stable, and I think they're better than AMD's [1]. They're just kind of ignored since nobody "chooses" to use an Intel GPU in their computer. You just get one bundled in your CPU, until now that is. Intel Xe will likely be very poorly received because they'll be compared to AMD and Nvidia's best offerings and "Intel is failing at everything" is the big story now. But AMD and Nvidia are treating the low end GPU market as some sort of a backwater, and there's a proper niche for people who just want a reliable graphics card with modern video outputs and modern video codecs. If it can run desktop 3D effects smoothly on multiple high resolution screens - like a better or less expensive GT1030 and RX550 - you can be golden. Not everything GPU is about gaming or high end compute. [1]: Okay, AMD's Linux drivers are also really good, but they can still have more hairy edge cases and lack of development than Intel's.

pedrocr 6y ago
But why would any of those people want this part? The only way I see it is if you want an Intel GPU for the compatibility in an otherwise AMD system. If not the Intel CPU you'd build already includes a more than capable GPU this generation.
- leetcrew 6y ago
  maybe I'm missing something important, but it seems like it could only be a super niche part for a laptop. why spend extra board area and BOM on an eGPU that barely outperforms the iGPU? seems like it would make more sense as an absolute bottom-of-the-barrel desktop part. maybe you have some old desktop that you want to turn into an HTPC, but it doesn't have the right ports or the ability to decode high bitrate video in realtime. plop one of these guys in for (ideally) $xx and you're good to go. of course, this would be the opposite of the high-margin stuff intel likes to make.
- DCKing 6y ago
  The GPU is usually an important part to upgrade to get old desktop hardware on with the times. Not because of games, but because having modern or many Displayport/HDMI connections is nice, and modern hardware video codecs can offload a lot of heavy duty number crunching work from your CPU [1]. Any Sandy Bridge to 1st gen Skylake desktop does not have these connections or codecs and could often really benefit from a decent $50-$80 add on GPU. Desktop Sandy Bridge can still make for a very decent computer if you can keep upgrade costs in check. An Intel Xe would also be a decent upgrade if you now already depend on some crappy older Nvidia or AMD GPU. [1]: Besides your basic h264/hevc/vp9 decoding, it seems Intel Xe has AV1 hardware video decoding, which you can otherwise only get in the very expensive/hard to get/power hungry AMD and Nvidia discrete GPUs (to be) released this month.
  - pbronez 6y ago
    This would be a nice upgrade for an older server. Older Dell and HP servers can host piles of storage and ram; they can make great workstation bargains, but you need to add a GPU. The Intel Xe could be a way to do that without much power draw.
    - awill 6y ago
      But the existing HP or sell server has huge power draw, so why try to save a few watts on a low power GPU.
  - joenathanone 6y ago
    This part is laptop only.
    - DCKing 6y ago
      Sure, I should spell out that I'm commenting on the obvious and much leaked next step which is PCIe cards based on this line of chips.
  - fomine3 6y ago
    Makes sense. Most consumer video cards is for gaming, but latest video cards also help for other works. dGPU with latest QSV would be blessing for NVR server.
lliamander 6y ago
Exactly. The market for GPUs using 75W should get interesting soon.
echlebek 6y ago
You're absolutely correct. Especially in the low-power segment, which AMD and nvidia have really ignored lately. If you want a <=75 watt GPU, which happens to be the limit for the PCIe slot without an external power connector, you have very limited options. For nVidia, the 1650 is the only modern part that will fit the bill. For AMD, you have to reach back to the RX 500 series, but good luck finding one. They're extremely uncommon even among the lower-end 500 series, as many of them require an external connector anyways. AMD do have lower-powered "workstation" offerings, but they're so expensive that it's hard to imagine putting one in a workstation voluntarily. They're also extremely poor performers, to the extent that you might not really see much of a benefit over a Vega iGPU. The Xe Max is only 25W TDP, which is very attractive if you're hoping to build a passively cooled Linux machine with a low-wattage power supply.
- lliamander 6y ago
  > AMD do have lower-powered "workstation" offerings, but they're so expensive that it's hard to imagine putting one in a workstation voluntarily. But goodness are they pretty.
- SXX 6y ago
  I recently started using GT710 for driving 3x of my 2K monitors at 85hz via HDMI. It works quite well even with Nouveau on Linux. That's not exactly modern, but it has 4 HDMI and cost around $50 too. Also fits into PCIe x1 slot and using under 25W.
- martinald 6y ago
  Agreed. It's really surprisingly hard to find a quiet card that can do 2x 4K displays @60Hz. The old ones don't support HDMI 2.0 so can only do 30Hz.
  - qz2 6y ago
    I've got a Gigabyte 1660 GTX in my desktop connected to one 4K display at 60Hz and that's doesn't even spin the fans up on the desktop. Even flat out it's barely audible. I don't know about two monitors but I suspect the story will be similar.
tw04 6y ago
> But AMD and Nvidia are treating the low end GPU market as some sort of a backwater Are they though? The GPU embedded in my ryzen 4900 seems to be just as good, if not better than this xe. The desktop version I would expect to show even better.
- lliamander 6y ago
  The iGPUs are great, but low-end discrete GPUs are largely ignored. The use case is for people who want HEDT CPUs but don't need high-end GPU power. Getting a modern low-power GPU allows you to still support modern codecs, modern display adapters, and high resolution displays.
  - mrguyorama 6y ago
    So you're willing to pay $1000 for a HEDT CPU but not $150 for a modern GPU?
    - lliamander 6y ago
      The price range for HEDT really starts at about $500. That includes low-end Core-X, 2nd gen Threadripper, and Ryzen 9 CPUs (which is essentially HEDT for many use cases). As it stands, there is no GPU that: - consumes 75W or less of power (i.e. running only on PCIe power) - has a modern architecture (with the latest codecs, display adapters, good perf-per-watt, etc.) - has solid support from open source drivers. Understandably, it's a niche use case. But AMD hasn't launched a new GPU in that range for almost 4 years.
  - tw04 6y ago
    But this isn't a discrete GPU for desktops... this announcement literally says it's for thin and light laptop applications. The desktop application is going to be OEM only and there's no indication at this point that it'll even be used to power external monitors vs. just a GPU offload for AI/ML workloads. https://www.anandtech.com/show/16211/intels-dg1-gpu-coming-to-discrete-desktop-cards-next-year-oemonly https://www.anandtech.com/show/16211/intels-dg1-gpu-coming-t...
pabs3 6y ago
More recently Intel's GPUs have started to require proprietary firmware, which they did not need before, although probably it was embedded in the GPU before.
- zucker42 6y ago
  Every vendor requires proprietary firmware now, afaik.
xbmcuser 6y ago
Yeah AMD drivers on linux are not very good. I fell for the nvidia hate because of its propritory drivers so upgraded with an AMD Ryzen Apu instead of just getting a new nvidia graphics card. It's not even a recent APU it's almost 1+ years old. Now I am still using the my nvidia card as the Ryzen Apu can't output 4k and need to upgrade my graphics card anyway.
- lliamander 6y ago
  What apu? I have a laptop with a Ryzen 5 3500U that can drive a 4K monitor just fine.
  - xbmcuser 6y ago
    Ryzen 5 3400g. I have the same Apu in my work pc that runs windows 10 so I know it's powerful enough to output to 4k but I don't even get the option to change to 4k in display manager. Tried the latest 5.9 kernel, Amd proprietary drivers many other things now I have given up just waiting for the new generation of nvidia cards to start arriving in quantity so I can get an older generation card cheaply
    - lliamander 6y ago
      I don't know what's going on. The 3500U and 3400G should be essentially the same silicon. I'm running Solus, which should have the latest kernel. Maybe try a different distro using a USB live distro just to see?
- fluffything 6y ago
  I got a top of the line AMD card for compute > 1 year ago. Still does not have ROCm support, so its been sitting in a shelf for >1 year. Some people here value "open source" drivers over "working drivers". I value "working drivers" over "open source" drivers over "proprietary" drivers. An open source driver that does not work, is worth zero to me. If it were true that "open source" means somebody can go and fix the driver, then somebody could have added ROCm support for the 5700 XT a long time ago. The fact that this has not happen, to me at least, means that open source is not as valuable as people seem to try to make it be here. Sure it is better than closed source, but if your driver doesn't work, and AMD doesn't want to fix it, it definitely does not mean that anybody will fix it within the lifetime of the card. This card will be surpassed by the 6000 series next week, no chance I'm going to buy one of those.
ksec 6y ago
>They're just kind of ignored since nobody "chooses" to use an Intel GPU in their computer. That is not entirely accurate though. From a total GPU market presumptive, Low End / Low Power equals integrated GPU. And both AMD and Nvidia simply cant compete with that. The market of a Low End GPU is tiny and unprofitable. When most consumers or customers are happy with their Intel iGPU. I dont blame them for lack of SKUs in this segment. And AMD is competing with their own APU as well.
pjmlp 6y ago
Intel also has an history of bad OpenGL implementations, where their drivers would state to implement features, which were actually done in software, making meaningless the feature query to decide what to call.
- mrec 6y ago
  Is there any vendor who doesn't do that? I remember conversations with Nvidia driver peeps on the OpenGL boards 20+ years ago, and it was very very striking that they would always, always, flatly refuse to implement any kind of "is it in hardware?" query. Waste of time even asking. It wasn't spelled out, but I think the implied rationale was that doing so would just be used against them by competitors' marketing in a bullet-point feature comparison. And maybe a bit of "you don't care if it's hardware, you care if it's fast", which isn't unreasonable.
  - pjmlp 6y ago
    Sure but Intel was the worst among everyone else.
- skocznymroczny 6y ago
  There are some obscure features in OpenGL like line stipple or selection mode. Most of them have been deprecated for over a decade, but there is still some CAD applications that rely on these functionalities and ancient OpenGL 1.3 semantics. It makes no sense to use silicon space to implement such features, if you can emulate them in software. Also, doing things in software doesn't always imply slow, because many old OpenGL features can be reimplemented with modern OpenGL using shaders, so it's done by hardware, just there is no dedicated HW support for it.
  - pjmlp 6y ago
    Back in the day they were doing this, shaders weren't still a thing, so you would get a slow CPU emulation instead.
fogihujy 6y ago
> They're just kind of ignored since nobody "chooses" to use an Intel GPU in their computer. You just get one bundled in your CPU, until now that is. People looking for Linux laptops certainly do. I've tried the AMD route twice the last ten years and I've been disappointed by crappy driver support and battery life in both cases.
gpderetta 6y ago
But for your scenario, an integrated GPU is just fine, and Intel already cover that market well. To justify it existence, a discrete GPU need to be better than that.
- Nullabillity 6y ago
  Ryzen normally doesn't have an iGPU though, and the APUs (which do) typically come out much later and don't scale as well as their CPU counterparts.
zucker42 6y ago
> But AMD and Nvidia are treating the low end GPU market as some sort of a backwater I have to guess that's because the low end GPU market is not very profitable.
Const-me 6y ago
> nobody "chooses" to use an Intel GPU in their computer. I did. My laptop has i3-6157u CPU, I chose it due to the Intel Iris GPU there. If I would be looking for a new one today, for similar reasons I would have picked an AMD APU.
bayindirh 6y ago
> Yeah! People say AMD has the best Linux drivers, but they're wrong! Intel's are feature rich and stable, and I think they're better than AMD's [1]. I'd like to counter this. Intel's driver quality is going down for a year or so. My old EliteBook 850G2 is running with Intel Graphics but, it started to show some flickering and corruptions for no reason. Nobody bothered to fix it yet. Intel's e1000e drivers started to behave awry on some older cards and, Intel didn't fix it. On the contrary, they continued to pile patches over this buggy driver. Kernel guys and Debian developers had to revert some patches back to stabilize the driver again. It still loses connectivity sometimes. By older cards, I mean some of them are barely two years old. IF, a big IF, Intel gets its thing together and restores the quality, it's great. Otherwise, I don't put them on a pedestal for driver quality. On the Windows side, I have an Intel wireless card which is officially supported by current drivers but, the new drivers bork the card after standby and system has to be powered off to restore card connectivity. The computer is a HP Spectre X2 convertible and, only older, out of the box Windows drivers (which are stock Intel drivers) can utilize the card correctly.

by DCKing 6y ago

pedrocr 6y ago

But why would any of those people want this part? The only way I see it is if you want an Intel GPU for the compatibility in an otherwise AMD system. If not the Intel CPU you'd build already includes a more than capable GPU this generation.

leetcrew 6y ago
maybe I'm missing something important, but it seems like it could only be a super niche part for a laptop. why spend extra board area and BOM on an eGPU that barely outperforms the iGPU? seems like it would make more sense as an absolute bottom-of-the-barrel desktop part. maybe you have some old desktop that you want to turn into an HTPC, but it doesn't have the right ports or the ability to decode high bitrate video in realtime. plop one of these guys in for (ideally) $xx and you're good to go. of course, this would be the opposite of the high-margin stuff intel likes to make.
DCKing 6y ago
The GPU is usually an important part to upgrade to get old desktop hardware on with the times. Not because of games, but because having modern or many Displayport/HDMI connections is nice, and modern hardware video codecs can offload a lot of heavy duty number crunching work from your CPU [1]. Any Sandy Bridge to 1st gen Skylake desktop does not have these connections or codecs and could often really benefit from a decent $50-$80 add on GPU. Desktop Sandy Bridge can still make for a very decent computer if you can keep upgrade costs in check. An Intel Xe would also be a decent upgrade if you now already depend on some crappy older Nvidia or AMD GPU. [1]: Besides your basic h264/hevc/vp9 decoding, it seems Intel Xe has AV1 hardware video decoding, which you can otherwise only get in the very expensive/hard to get/power hungry AMD and Nvidia discrete GPUs (to be) released this month.
- pbronez 6y ago
  This would be a nice upgrade for an older server. Older Dell and HP servers can host piles of storage and ram; they can make great workstation bargains, but you need to add a GPU. The Intel Xe could be a way to do that without much power draw.
  - awill 6y ago
    But the existing HP or sell server has huge power draw, so why try to save a few watts on a low power GPU.
- joenathanone 6y ago
  This part is laptop only.
  - DCKing 6y ago
    Sure, I should spell out that I'm commenting on the obvious and much leaked next step which is PCIe cards based on this line of chips.
- fomine3 6y ago
  Makes sense. Most consumer video cards is for gaming, but latest video cards also help for other works. dGPU with latest QSV would be blessing for NVR server.

lliamander 6y ago

Exactly. The market for GPUs using 75W should get interesting soon.

echlebek 6y ago

You're absolutely correct. Especially in the low-power segment, which AMD and nvidia have really ignored lately. If you want a <=75 watt GPU, which happens to be the limit for the PCIe slot without an external power connector, you have very limited options. For nVidia, the 1650 is the only modern part that will fit the bill. For AMD, you have to reach back to the RX 500 series, but good luck finding one. They're extremely uncommon even among the lower-end 500 series, as many of them require an external connector anyways. AMD do have lower-powered "workstation" offerings, but they're so expensive that it's hard to imagine putting one in a workstation voluntarily. They're also extremely poor performers, to the extent that you might not really see much of a benefit over a Vega iGPU. The Xe Max is only 25W TDP, which is very attractive if you're hoping to build a passively cooled Linux machine with a low-wattage power supply.

lliamander 6y ago
> AMD do have lower-powered "workstation" offerings, but they're so expensive that it's hard to imagine putting one in a workstation voluntarily. But goodness are they pretty.
SXX 6y ago
I recently started using GT710 for driving 3x of my 2K monitors at 85hz via HDMI. It works quite well even with Nouveau on Linux. That's not exactly modern, but it has 4 HDMI and cost around $50 too. Also fits into PCIe x1 slot and using under 25W.
martinald 6y ago
Agreed. It's really surprisingly hard to find a quiet card that can do 2x 4K displays @60Hz. The old ones don't support HDMI 2.0 so can only do 30Hz.
- qz2 6y ago
  I've got a Gigabyte 1660 GTX in my desktop connected to one 4K display at 60Hz and that's doesn't even spin the fans up on the desktop. Even flat out it's barely audible. I don't know about two monitors but I suspect the story will be similar.

tw04 6y ago

> But AMD and Nvidia are treating the low end GPU market as some sort of a backwater Are they though? The GPU embedded in my ryzen 4900 seems to be just as good, if not better than this xe. The desktop version I would expect to show even better.

lliamander 6y ago
The iGPUs are great, but low-end discrete GPUs are largely ignored. The use case is for people who want HEDT CPUs but don't need high-end GPU power. Getting a modern low-power GPU allows you to still support modern codecs, modern display adapters, and high resolution displays.
- mrguyorama 6y ago
  So you're willing to pay $1000 for a HEDT CPU but not $150 for a modern GPU?
  - lliamander 6y ago
    The price range for HEDT really starts at about $500. That includes low-end Core-X, 2nd gen Threadripper, and Ryzen 9 CPUs (which is essentially HEDT for many use cases). As it stands, there is no GPU that: - consumes 75W or less of power (i.e. running only on PCIe power) - has a modern architecture (with the latest codecs, display adapters, good perf-per-watt, etc.) - has solid support from open source drivers. Understandably, it's a niche use case. But AMD hasn't launched a new GPU in that range for almost 4 years.
- tw04 6y ago
  But this isn't a discrete GPU for desktops... this announcement literally says it's for thin and light laptop applications. The desktop application is going to be OEM only and there's no indication at this point that it'll even be used to power external monitors vs. just a GPU offload for AI/ML workloads. https://www.anandtech.com/show/16211/intels-dg1-gpu-coming-to-discrete-desktop-cards-next-year-oemonly https://www.anandtech.com/show/16211/intels-dg1-gpu-coming-t...

pabs3 6y ago

More recently Intel's GPUs have started to require proprietary firmware, which they did not need before, although probably it was embedded in the GPU before.

zucker42 6y ago
Every vendor requires proprietary firmware now, afaik.

xbmcuser 6y ago

Yeah AMD drivers on linux are not very good. I fell for the nvidia hate because of its propritory drivers so upgraded with an AMD Ryzen Apu instead of just getting a new nvidia graphics card. It's not even a recent APU it's almost 1+ years old. Now I am still using the my nvidia card as the Ryzen Apu can't output 4k and need to upgrade my graphics card anyway.

lliamander 6y ago
What apu? I have a laptop with a Ryzen 5 3500U that can drive a 4K monitor just fine.
- xbmcuser 6y ago
  Ryzen 5 3400g. I have the same Apu in my work pc that runs windows 10 so I know it's powerful enough to output to 4k but I don't even get the option to change to 4k in display manager. Tried the latest 5.9 kernel, Amd proprietary drivers many other things now I have given up just waiting for the new generation of nvidia cards to start arriving in quantity so I can get an older generation card cheaply
  - lliamander 6y ago
    I don't know what's going on. The 3500U and 3400G should be essentially the same silicon. I'm running Solus, which should have the latest kernel. Maybe try a different distro using a USB live distro just to see?
fluffything 6y ago
I got a top of the line AMD card for compute > 1 year ago. Still does not have ROCm support, so its been sitting in a shelf for >1 year. Some people here value "open source" drivers over "working drivers". I value "working drivers" over "open source" drivers over "proprietary" drivers. An open source driver that does not work, is worth zero to me. If it were true that "open source" means somebody can go and fix the driver, then somebody could have added ROCm support for the 5700 XT a long time ago. The fact that this has not happen, to me at least, means that open source is not as valuable as people seem to try to make it be here. Sure it is better than closed source, but if your driver doesn't work, and AMD doesn't want to fix it, it definitely does not mean that anybody will fix it within the lifetime of the card. This card will be surpassed by the 6000 series next week, no chance I'm going to buy one of those.

ksec 6y ago

>They're just kind of ignored since nobody "chooses" to use an Intel GPU in their computer. That is not entirely accurate though. From a total GPU market presumptive, Low End / Low Power equals integrated GPU. And both AMD and Nvidia simply cant compete with that. The market of a Low End GPU is tiny and unprofitable. When most consumers or customers are happy with their Intel iGPU. I dont blame them for lack of SKUs in this segment. And AMD is competing with their own APU as well.

pjmlp 6y ago

Intel also has an history of bad OpenGL implementations, where their drivers would state to implement features, which were actually done in software, making meaningless the feature query to decide what to call.

mrec 6y ago
Is there any vendor who doesn't do that? I remember conversations with Nvidia driver peeps on the OpenGL boards 20+ years ago, and it was very very striking that they would always, always, flatly refuse to implement any kind of "is it in hardware?" query. Waste of time even asking. It wasn't spelled out, but I think the implied rationale was that doing so would just be used against them by competitors' marketing in a bullet-point feature comparison. And maybe a bit of "you don't care if it's hardware, you care if it's fast", which isn't unreasonable.
- pjmlp 6y ago
  Sure but Intel was the worst among everyone else.
skocznymroczny 6y ago
There are some obscure features in OpenGL like line stipple or selection mode. Most of them have been deprecated for over a decade, but there is still some CAD applications that rely on these functionalities and ancient OpenGL 1.3 semantics. It makes no sense to use silicon space to implement such features, if you can emulate them in software. Also, doing things in software doesn't always imply slow, because many old OpenGL features can be reimplemented with modern OpenGL using shaders, so it's done by hardware, just there is no dedicated HW support for it.
- pjmlp 6y ago
  Back in the day they were doing this, shaders weren't still a thing, so you would get a slow CPU emulation instead.

fogihujy 6y ago

> They're just kind of ignored since nobody "chooses" to use an Intel GPU in their computer. You just get one bundled in your CPU, until now that is. People looking for Linux laptops certainly do. I've tried the AMD route twice the last ten years and I've been disappointed by crappy driver support and battery life in both cases.

gpderetta 6y ago

But for your scenario, an integrated GPU is just fine, and Intel already cover that market well. To justify it existence, a discrete GPU need to be better than that.

Nullabillity 6y ago
Ryzen normally doesn't have an iGPU though, and the APUs (which do) typically come out much later and don't scale as well as their CPU counterparts.

zucker42 6y ago

> But AMD and Nvidia are treating the low end GPU market as some sort of a backwater I have to guess that's because the low end GPU market is not very profitable.

Const-me 6y ago

> nobody "chooses" to use an Intel GPU in their computer. I did. My laptop has i3-6157u CPU, I chose it due to the Intel Iris GPU there. If I would be looking for a new one today, for similar reasons I would have picked an AMD APU.

bayindirh 6y ago

> Yeah! People say AMD has the best Linux drivers, but they're wrong! Intel's are feature rich and stable, and I think they're better than AMD's [1]. I'd like to counter this. Intel's driver quality is going down for a year or so. My old EliteBook 850G2 is running with Intel Graphics but, it started to show some flickering and corruptions for no reason. Nobody bothered to fix it yet. Intel's e1000e drivers started to behave awry on some older cards and, Intel didn't fix it. On the contrary, they continued to pile patches over this buggy driver. Kernel guys and Debian developers had to revert some patches back to stabilize the driver again. It still loses connectivity sometimes. By older cards, I mean some of them are barely two years old. IF, a big IF, Intel gets its thing together and restores the quality, it's great. Otherwise, I don't put them on a pedestal for driver quality. On the Windows side, I have an Intel wireless card which is officially supported by current drivers but, the new drivers bork the card after standby and system has to be powered off to restore card connectivity. The computer is a HP Spectre X2 convertible and, only older, out of the box Windows drivers (which are stock Intel drivers) can utilize the card correctly.