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Intel has the manufacturing capability to really beat up Nvidia. Even if the cards don’t perform like top-tier cards they could still win bigly here. Very exci

Intel has the manufacturing capability to really beat up Nvidia. Even if the cards don’t perform like top-tier cards they could still win bigly here. Very exciting!

flenserboy 5y ago
Indeed. Something that's affordable and hits even RX 580 performance would grab the attention of many. Good enough really is when supply is low and prices are high.
opencl 5y ago
Intel is not even manufacturing these, they are TSMC 7nm so they are competing for the same fab capacity that everyone else is using.
- judge2020 5y ago
  *AMD/Apple is using. Nvidia's always-sold-out Ampere-based gaming chips are made in a Samsung fab. https://www.pcgamer.com/nvidia-ampere-samsung-8nm-process/ https://www.pcgamer.com/nvidia-ampere-samsung-8nm-process/
  - paulmd 5y ago
    if NVIDIA cards were priced as ridiculously as AMD cards they'd be sitting on store shelves too
    - kllrnohj 5y ago
      Nvidia doesn't price any cards other than the founder's editions which you'll notice they both drastically cut down on availability for and also didn't do at all for the "price sensitive" mid-range tier. Nvidia's pricing as a result is completely fake. Like the claimed "$330 3060" in fact starts at $400 and rapidly goes up from there, with MSRP's on 3060's as high as $560.
      - paulmd 5y ago
        I didn't say NVIDIA did directly price cards? Doesn't sound like you are doing a very good job of following the HN rule - always give the most gracious possible reading of a comment. Nothing I said directly implied that they did, you just wanted to pick a bone. It's really quite rude to put words in people's mouths, and that's why we have this rule. But a 6900XT is available for $3100 at my local store... and the 3090 is $2100. Between the two it's not hard to see why the NVIDIA cards are selling and the AMD cards are sitting on the shelves, the AMD cards are 50% more expensive for the same performance. As for why that is - which is the point I think you wanted to address, and decided to try and impute into my comment - who knows. Price are "sticky" (retailers don't want to mark down prices and take a loss) and AMD moves fewer cards in general. Maybe that means that prices are "stickier for longer" with AMD. Or maybe it's another thing like Vega where AMD set the MSRP so low that partners can't actually build and sell a card for a profit at competitive prices. But in general, regardless of why - the prices for AMD cards are generally higher, and when they go down the AMD cards sell out too. The inventory that is available is available because it's overpriced. (and for both brands, the pre-tariff MSRPs are essentially a fiction at this point apart from the reference cards and will probably never be met again.)
        RussianCow 5y ago
        > But a 6900XT is available for $3100 at my local store... and the 3090 is $2100. That's just your store being dumb, then. The 6900 XT is averaging about $1,500 brand new on eBay[0] while the 3090 is going for about $2,500[1]. Even on Newegg, the cheapest in-stock 6900 XT card is $1,700[2] while the cheapest 3090 is $3,000[3]. Everything I've read suggests that the AMD cards, while generally a little slower than their Nvidia counterparts (especially when you factor in ray-tracing), give you way more bang for your buck. > the prices for AMD cards are generally higher This is just not true. There may be several reasons for the Nvidia cards being out of stock more often than AMD: better performance; stronger brand; lower production counts; poor perception of AMD drivers; specific games being optimized for Nvidia; or pretty much anything else. But at this point, pricing is set by supply and demand, not by arbitrary MSRPs set by Nvidia/AMD, so claiming that AMD cards are priced too high is absolutely incorrect. [0]: https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=6900xt&_sacat=0&LH_ItemCondition=1000&rt=nc&LH_Sold=1&LH_Complete=1 https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=6900xt&_sacat... [1]: https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=3090&_sacat=0&LH_TitleDesc=0&LH_Complete=1&LH_Sold=1&rt=nc&LH_ItemCondition=1000 https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=3090&_sacat=0... [2]: https://www.newegg.com/p/pl?N=100007709%20601359957&Order=1 https://www.newegg.com/p/pl?N=100007709%20601359957&Order=1 [3]: https://www.newegg.com/p/pl?N=100007709%20601357248&Order=1 https://www.newegg.com/p/pl?N=100007709%20601357248&Order=1
  - Yizahi 5y ago
    Nvidia would also use TSMC 7nm since it is much better that Samsung 8mn. So potentially they are also waiting for the TSMC availability.
    - judge2020 5y ago
      How is it 'much better'? 7nm is not better than 8nm because it has a smaller number - the number doesn't correlate strongly with transistor density these days.
      - kllrnohj 5y ago
        Did you bother trying to do any research or comparison between TSMC's 7nm & Samsung's 8nm or did you just want to make the claim that numbers are just marketing? Despite the fact that numbers alone were not being talked about, but two specific fab processes, and thus the "it's just a number!" mistake wasn't obviously being made in the first place? But Nvidia has Ampere on both TSMC 7nm (GA100) and Samsung's 8nm (GA102). The TSMC variant has a significantly higher density at 65.6M / mm² vs. 45.1M / mm². Comparing across architectures is murkey, but we also know that the TSMC 7nm 6900XT clocks a lot higher than the Samsung 8nm RTX 3080/3090 while also drawing less power. There's of course a lot more to clock speeds & power draw in an actual product than the raw fab transistor performance, but it's still a data point. So there's both density & performance evidence to suggest TSMC's 7nm is meaningfully better than Samsung's 8nm. Even going off of marketing names, Samsung has a 7nm as well and they don't pretend their 8nm is just one-worse than the 7nm. The 8nm is an evolution of the 10nm node while the 7nm is itself a new node. According to Samsung's marketing flowcharts, anyway. And analysis suggests Samsung's 7nm is competitive with TSMC's 7nm.
  - IshKebab 5y ago
    TSMC have a 56% percent market share. The next closest is Samsung at 18%. I think that's enough to say that everyone uses them without much hyperbole.
    - ineedasername 5y ago
      This is the point where commenters enter into a pedantic discussion about whether 56% is better suited to the term everyone or the term most. :)
- Animats 5y ago
  Oh, that's disappointing. Intel has three 7nm fabs in the US. There's a lot of fab capacity under construction. 2-3 years out, semiconductor glut again.
- BuckRogers 5y ago
  This is a problem for AMD especially, but also Nvidia. Not so much for Intel. They're just budging in line with their superior firepower. Intel even bought out first dibs on TSMC 3nm out from under Apple. I'll be interested to see the market's reaction to this once everyone realizes that Intel is hitting AMD where it hurts and sees the inevitable outcome. This is one of the smartest moves by Intel, make their own stuff and consume production from all their competitors, which do nothing but paper designs. Nvidia and especially AMD took a risk not being in the fabrication business, and now we'll see the full repercussions. It's a good play (outsourcing) in good times, not so much when things get tight like today.
  - wmf 5y ago
    This is a problem for AMD especially Probably not. AMD has had their N7/N6 orders in for years. They're just budging in line with their superior firepower. Intel even bought out first dibs on TSMC 3nm out from under Apple. There's no evidence this is happening and people with TSMC experience say it's not happening. Nvidia and especially AMD took a risk not being in the fabrication business Yes, and it paid off dramatically. If AMD stayed with their in-house fabs (now GloFo) they'd probably be dead on 14nm now.
    - BuckRogers 5y ago
      Do you have sources for any of your claims? Other than going fabless being a fantastic way to cut costs and management challenges, but increase longterm supply line risk, none of that is anything that I've heard. Here are sources for my claims. AMD on TSMC 3nm for Zen5. Will be squeezed by Intel and Apple- https://videocardz.com/newz/amd-3nm-zen5-apus-codenamed-strix-point-rumored-to-feature-big-little-cores https://videocardz.com/newz/amd-3nm-zen5-apus-codenamed-stri... Intel consuming a good portion of TSMC 3nm- https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/intel-locks-down-all-remaining-tsmc-3nm-production-capacity-boxing-out-amd-and-apple/ar-AANfRXX https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/intel-locks-down-a... I see zero upside with these developments for AMD, and to a lesser degree, Nvidia, who are better diversified with Samsung and also rumored to be in talks with fabricating at Intel as well.
abledon 5y ago
it seems AMD manufactures most 7nm all at TSMC, but intel has a factory coming online next year in Arizona... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_manufacturing_sites https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_manufacturing_si... I could see gov/Military investing/awarding more contracts based on these 'locally' situated plants
- humanistbot 5y ago
  Nope, wiki is wrong. According to Intel, the facility in Chander, AZ will start being built next year, but won't be producing chips until 2024. See https://www.anandtech.com/show/16573/intels-new-strategy-20b-for-two-fabs-meteor-lake-7nm-tiles-new-foundry-services-ibm-collaboration-return-of-idf https://www.anandtech.com/show/16573/intels-new-strategy-20b...
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
pankajdoharey 5y ago
What about design capabilities? If they had it in them what were they doing all these yrs? i mean since 2000 i can remember a single GPU from intel that wasnt already behind the market.
- Tsiklon 5y ago
  Raja Koduri is Intel’s lead architect for their new product line; prior to this he was the lead of the Radeon Technologies Group at AMD, successfully delivering Polaris, Vega and Navi. Navi is AMD’s current GPU product architecture. Things seem promising at this stage.
deaddodo 5y ago
Where do you get that idea? The third-party fabs have far greater production capacity[1]. Intel isn't even in the top five. They're a shared resource; however, if you're willing to pay the money, you could monopolize their resources and outproduce anybody. 1 - https://epsnews.com/2021/02/10/5-fabs-own-54-of-global-semiconductor-capacity/ https://epsnews.com/2021/02/10/5-fabs-own-54-of-global-semic...
- wtallis 5y ago
  You're looking at the wrong numbers. The wafer capacity of memory fabs and logic fabs that are only equipped for older nodes aren't relevant to the GPU market. So Micron, SK hynix, Kioxia/WD and a good chunk of Samsung and TSMC capacity are irrelevant here.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]

Intel has the manufacturing capability to really beat up Nvidia. Even if the cards don’t perform like top-tier cards they could still win bigly here. Very exciting!

flenserboy 5y ago

Indeed. Something that's affordable and hits even RX 580 performance would grab the attention of many. Good enough really is when supply is low and prices are high.

opencl 5y ago

Intel is not even manufacturing these, they are TSMC 7nm so they are competing for the same fab capacity that everyone else is using.

judge2020 5y ago
*AMD/Apple is using. Nvidia's always-sold-out Ampere-based gaming chips are made in a Samsung fab. https://www.pcgamer.com/nvidia-ampere-samsung-8nm-process/ https://www.pcgamer.com/nvidia-ampere-samsung-8nm-process/
- paulmd 5y ago
  if NVIDIA cards were priced as ridiculously as AMD cards they'd be sitting on store shelves too
  - kllrnohj 5y ago
    Nvidia doesn't price any cards other than the founder's editions which you'll notice they both drastically cut down on availability for and also didn't do at all for the "price sensitive" mid-range tier. Nvidia's pricing as a result is completely fake. Like the claimed "$330 3060" in fact starts at $400 and rapidly goes up from there, with MSRP's on 3060's as high as $560.
    - paulmd 5y ago
      I didn't say NVIDIA did directly price cards? Doesn't sound like you are doing a very good job of following the HN rule - always give the most gracious possible reading of a comment. Nothing I said directly implied that they did, you just wanted to pick a bone. It's really quite rude to put words in people's mouths, and that's why we have this rule. But a 6900XT is available for $3100 at my local store... and the 3090 is $2100. Between the two it's not hard to see why the NVIDIA cards are selling and the AMD cards are sitting on the shelves, the AMD cards are 50% more expensive for the same performance. As for why that is - which is the point I think you wanted to address, and decided to try and impute into my comment - who knows. Price are "sticky" (retailers don't want to mark down prices and take a loss) and AMD moves fewer cards in general. Maybe that means that prices are "stickier for longer" with AMD. Or maybe it's another thing like Vega where AMD set the MSRP so low that partners can't actually build and sell a card for a profit at competitive prices. But in general, regardless of why - the prices for AMD cards are generally higher, and when they go down the AMD cards sell out too. The inventory that is available is available because it's overpriced. (and for both brands, the pre-tariff MSRPs are essentially a fiction at this point apart from the reference cards and will probably never be met again.)
      - RussianCow 5y ago
        > But a 6900XT is available for $3100 at my local store... and the 3090 is $2100. That's just your store being dumb, then. The 6900 XT is averaging about $1,500 brand new on eBay[0] while the 3090 is going for about $2,500[1]. Even on Newegg, the cheapest in-stock 6900 XT card is $1,700[2] while the cheapest 3090 is $3,000[3]. Everything I've read suggests that the AMD cards, while generally a little slower than their Nvidia counterparts (especially when you factor in ray-tracing), give you way more bang for your buck. > the prices for AMD cards are generally higher This is just not true. There may be several reasons for the Nvidia cards being out of stock more often than AMD: better performance; stronger brand; lower production counts; poor perception of AMD drivers; specific games being optimized for Nvidia; or pretty much anything else. But at this point, pricing is set by supply and demand, not by arbitrary MSRPs set by Nvidia/AMD, so claiming that AMD cards are priced too high is absolutely incorrect. [0]: https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=6900xt&_sacat=0&LH_ItemCondition=1000&rt=nc&LH_Sold=1&LH_Complete=1 https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=6900xt&_sacat... [1]: https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=3090&_sacat=0&LH_TitleDesc=0&LH_Complete=1&LH_Sold=1&rt=nc&LH_ItemCondition=1000 https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=3090&_sacat=0... [2]: https://www.newegg.com/p/pl?N=100007709%20601359957&Order=1 https://www.newegg.com/p/pl?N=100007709%20601359957&Order=1 [3]: https://www.newegg.com/p/pl?N=100007709%20601357248&Order=1 https://www.newegg.com/p/pl?N=100007709%20601357248&Order=1
- Yizahi 5y ago
  Nvidia would also use TSMC 7nm since it is much better that Samsung 8mn. So potentially they are also waiting for the TSMC availability.
  - judge2020 5y ago
    How is it 'much better'? 7nm is not better than 8nm because it has a smaller number - the number doesn't correlate strongly with transistor density these days.
    - kllrnohj 5y ago
      Did you bother trying to do any research or comparison between TSMC's 7nm & Samsung's 8nm or did you just want to make the claim that numbers are just marketing? Despite the fact that numbers alone were not being talked about, but two specific fab processes, and thus the "it's just a number!" mistake wasn't obviously being made in the first place? But Nvidia has Ampere on both TSMC 7nm (GA100) and Samsung's 8nm (GA102). The TSMC variant has a significantly higher density at 65.6M / mm² vs. 45.1M / mm². Comparing across architectures is murkey, but we also know that the TSMC 7nm 6900XT clocks a lot higher than the Samsung 8nm RTX 3080/3090 while also drawing less power. There's of course a lot more to clock speeds & power draw in an actual product than the raw fab transistor performance, but it's still a data point. So there's both density & performance evidence to suggest TSMC's 7nm is meaningfully better than Samsung's 8nm. Even going off of marketing names, Samsung has a 7nm as well and they don't pretend their 8nm is just one-worse than the 7nm. The 8nm is an evolution of the 10nm node while the 7nm is itself a new node. According to Samsung's marketing flowcharts, anyway. And analysis suggests Samsung's 7nm is competitive with TSMC's 7nm.
- IshKebab 5y ago
  TSMC have a 56% percent market share. The next closest is Samsung at 18%. I think that's enough to say that everyone uses them without much hyperbole.
  - ineedasername 5y ago
    This is the point where commenters enter into a pedantic discussion about whether 56% is better suited to the term everyone or the term most. :)
Animats 5y ago
Oh, that's disappointing. Intel has three 7nm fabs in the US. There's a lot of fab capacity under construction. 2-3 years out, semiconductor glut again.
BuckRogers 5y ago
This is a problem for AMD especially, but also Nvidia. Not so much for Intel. They're just budging in line with their superior firepower. Intel even bought out first dibs on TSMC 3nm out from under Apple. I'll be interested to see the market's reaction to this once everyone realizes that Intel is hitting AMD where it hurts and sees the inevitable outcome. This is one of the smartest moves by Intel, make their own stuff and consume production from all their competitors, which do nothing but paper designs. Nvidia and especially AMD took a risk not being in the fabrication business, and now we'll see the full repercussions. It's a good play (outsourcing) in good times, not so much when things get tight like today.
- wmf 5y ago
  This is a problem for AMD especially Probably not. AMD has had their N7/N6 orders in for years. They're just budging in line with their superior firepower. Intel even bought out first dibs on TSMC 3nm out from under Apple. There's no evidence this is happening and people with TSMC experience say it's not happening. Nvidia and especially AMD took a risk not being in the fabrication business Yes, and it paid off dramatically. If AMD stayed with their in-house fabs (now GloFo) they'd probably be dead on 14nm now.
  - BuckRogers 5y ago
    Do you have sources for any of your claims? Other than going fabless being a fantastic way to cut costs and management challenges, but increase longterm supply line risk, none of that is anything that I've heard. Here are sources for my claims. AMD on TSMC 3nm for Zen5. Will be squeezed by Intel and Apple- https://videocardz.com/newz/amd-3nm-zen5-apus-codenamed-strix-point-rumored-to-feature-big-little-cores https://videocardz.com/newz/amd-3nm-zen5-apus-codenamed-stri... Intel consuming a good portion of TSMC 3nm- https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/intel-locks-down-all-remaining-tsmc-3nm-production-capacity-boxing-out-amd-and-apple/ar-AANfRXX https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/intel-locks-down-a... I see zero upside with these developments for AMD, and to a lesser degree, Nvidia, who are better diversified with Samsung and also rumored to be in talks with fabricating at Intel as well.

abledon 5y ago

it seems AMD manufactures most 7nm all at TSMC, but intel has a factory coming online next year in Arizona... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_manufacturing_sites https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_manufacturing_si... I could see gov/Military investing/awarding more contracts based on these 'locally' situated plants

humanistbot 5y ago
Nope, wiki is wrong. According to Intel, the facility in Chander, AZ will start being built next year, but won't be producing chips until 2024. See https://www.anandtech.com/show/16573/intels-new-strategy-20b-for-two-fabs-meteor-lake-7nm-tiles-new-foundry-services-ibm-collaboration-return-of-idf https://www.anandtech.com/show/16573/intels-new-strategy-20b...

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

pankajdoharey 5y ago

What about design capabilities? If they had it in them what were they doing all these yrs? i mean since 2000 i can remember a single GPU from intel that wasnt already behind the market.

Tsiklon 5y ago
Raja Koduri is Intel’s lead architect for their new product line; prior to this he was the lead of the Radeon Technologies Group at AMD, successfully delivering Polaris, Vega and Navi. Navi is AMD’s current GPU product architecture. Things seem promising at this stage.

deaddodo 5y ago

Where do you get that idea? The third-party fabs have far greater production capacity[1]. Intel isn't even in the top five. They're a shared resource; however, if you're willing to pay the money, you could monopolize their resources and outproduce anybody. 1 - https://epsnews.com/2021/02/10/5-fabs-own-54-of-global-semiconductor-capacity/ https://epsnews.com/2021/02/10/5-fabs-own-54-of-global-semic...

wtallis 5y ago
You're looking at the wrong numbers. The wafer capacity of memory fabs and logic fabs that are only equipped for older nodes aren't relevant to the GPU market. So Micron, SK hynix, Kioxia/WD and a good chunk of Samsung and TSMC capacity are irrelevant here.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]