15 ms·

Will Intel's AXG division survive Pat Gelsinger’s axe?

75 points by oumua_don17 4y ago

rektide 4y ago
None of the other items Intel has let go of are an existential must have. GPUs are a must have in any computer big or small. Raw number crunching is core to the very profitable HPC market. Players like Nvidia have fully custom interlinks that threaten to dry up even the CPU sales Intel still gets in this market. GPU is a focus on mobile where expectations have been much raised. This group is supposedly 6 years old. But reciprocally, the other players have been pouring money in over decades. GPUs are fantastically complicated systems. Getting started here is enormously challenging, with vast demands. Just shipping is a huge accomplishment. Time to grow into it & adjust is necessary. It's such a huge challenge, and I really hope AXG is given the time, resources, iterations, & access to fabs it'll take to get up to speed.
- khitchdee 4y ago
  Intel should double down on its core business which is selling x86 chips for Windows PCs. If it loses to AMD+TSMC here, there's nowhere left to hide. IFS is very long term and a new business opportunity in a market where Intel is not the leader. x86 for Windows is their bread and butter. They need to throw everything else out and downsize to just excelling at what they've always done. My guess is AXG is a separate division than the division that makes the graphics for their core microprocessors.
  - mschuster91 4y ago
    > Intel should double down on its core business which is selling x86 chips for Windows PCs. If it loses to AMD+TSMC here, there's nowhere left to hide. IFS is very long term and a new business opportunity in a market where Intel is not the leader. The very second someone else but Apple brings a competitive ARM desktop CPU to the market, it's game over for Intel. x86_64 literally cannot compete with modern ARM designs simply because of how much utter garbage from about thirty years worth of history it has accumulated and absolutely needs to support in the future because even the boot process still requires all that crap, whereas ARM was never shy about cutting out stuff and breaking backwards compatibility to stay performant. The only luck that Intel has at the moment is that Samsung and Qualcomm are dumpster fires - Samsung has enough problems getting a phone to run at a halfway decent performance with their Exynos line and Qualcomm managed to completely botch their exclusive deal with Microsoft [1] (hardly surprising to anyone who has ever had the misfortune to have to work with their crap). A small startup that is not bound by ages of legacy and corporate red tape should be able to complete such a project - Annapurna Labs have proven it's possible to break into the server ARM CPU market well enough to get acquired by Amazon. [1] https://www.xda-developers.com/qualcomm-exclusivity-deal-microsoft-windows-on-arm/ https://www.xda-developers.com/qualcomm-exclusivity-deal-mic...
    - khitchdee 4y ago
      Apple will always be niche because they are too expensive. ARM based PC client processors accounted for about 9% of the total market. But I don't expect that number will grow a lot higher due to cost of Macs. Also, you can't bring out a desktop PC based on Linux because that a very slowly growing market segment and MacOS is proprietary. Don't think Apple will start another PowerComputing type scenario where they open their platform to others. It's not a matter of performance for this reason (price). So, on Windows, assuming Macs don't take away any more market share from Windows, they need to beat AMD+TSMC.
      - spookie 4y ago
        > Also, you can't bring out a desktop PC based on Linux because that a very slowly growing market segment Wouldn't bet on that one
      - mschuster91 4y ago
        > So, on Windows, assuming Macs don't take away any more market share from Windows, they need to beat AMD+TSMC. No. All it needs is - Microsoft and Qualcomm breaking their unholy and IMHO questionably legal alliance - an ARM CPU vendor willing to do the same as Apple did and add support for accelerating translation of x86 code (IIRC, memory access models/barriers are done differently between x86 and ARM, and Apple simply extended their cores to be able to use the same memory access/barrier model as x86 on translated-x86 threads) - an ARM CPU vendor willing to implement basic functionality like PCIe actually according to spec - even the Raspberry Pi which is the closest you can get to a mass market general-purpose ARM computer has that broken [1] - someone (tm) willing to define a common standard of bootup sequence/standard feature set. Might be possible that UEFI fills the role; the current ARM bootloaders are a hot mess compared to the old and tried BIOS/boot sector x86 approach, and most (!) ARM CPUs/BSPs aren't exactly built with "the hardware attached to the chips may change at will" in mind. Rosetta isn't patented to my knowledge, absolutely nothing is stopping Microsoft from doing the same as part of Windows. [1] https://www.hackster.io/news/jeff-geerling-shows-off-an-amd-radeon-gpu-running-on-the-raspberry-pi-cm4-after-a-fashion-3f2fd7c5b516 https://www.hackster.io/news/jeff-geerling-shows-off-an-amd-...
- pjmlp 4y ago
  Intel famously used to lie on their OpenGL drivers, asserting features were supported, but were actually software rendered. Larrabe was shown at GDCE 2009 as if going to render the competition useless, then faded away. Their GPU debugger marketing sessions used to be focused on how to optimise games for integrated GPUs. I really don't get how they keep missing the mark versus AMD and NVidia in both GPU design and developer tooling.
  - pinewurst 4y ago
    Don't forget Intel's world-beating i740!
    - Miraste 4y ago
      Ah, the i740. Because VRAM is a conspiracy cooked up by 3DFX and Nvidia to take your money, and real gamers don't need any.
    - muro 4y ago
      Anyone who bought one will not forgive them that one.
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago
  >None of the other items Intel has let go of are an existential must have. Except mobile ARM chips and mobile LTE modems, both of which Intel sold off, and those are some of the most desirable things to make right now. Just ask Quallcomm.
  - mrandish 4y ago
    Yep. Competent mobile ARM and LTE modem cores would be very nice to have in their tech stack right about now. I think a credible (if not fully competent), GPU stack is pretty essential for strategic relevance going forward. This seems like something they have to make work.
tadfisher 4y ago
> Since Q1’21 when Intel started reporting on its dGPU group, known as AXG or accelerated graphics, the company has lost a staggering $2.1 billion and has very little to show for it. You know, except for a competitive desktop GPU. I'm actually impressed that it didn't take much longer and much more money to catch up with AMD and NVIDIA, given that those two were in business when 3dfx was still around.
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago
  I don't know why your painting Intel as some new entry GPU beginner here, but FYI, Intel had been making and selling integrated GPUs for over 20 years now, to the point they pretty much dominate the GPU market share in sheer numbers (most desktops and laptops, even older Macs, sold in the last 10-15 years are most likely gonna have an Intel chip with integrated graphics, regardless if it's used or not in favor of a discrete GPU). Sure, their iGPU offerings were never competitive for gaming or complex tasks, but given it came for "free" with your CPU, it was good enough for most businesses and consumers and was a also a major boon during the GPU shortage where gamers who build systems with AMD chips were left unable to use their PC while those who went Intel could at least use their PC for some productivity and entertainment until they could buy a dGPU. So it's not like they had to start absolutely from scratch here. In fact, Intel's latest integrated GPU architecture, Xe, was so good, it was beating the integrated Vega graphics AMD was shipping till the 6xxx series with RDNA2 in 2022, while also killing the demand for Nvidia's low end dGPUs for desktops (GT 1050) and mobile (MX350). Xe was also the first GPU on the market with AV1 decode support. So given this, Intel is definitely not a failure in the GPU space, they're definitely doing some things right but they just can't box in the ring with "Ali" yet. Anyone thinking they can leapfrog Radeon and Nvidia at their first attempt would be foolish. Intel should take on the losses on the GPU division for a few more years and push through.
  - buran77 4y ago
    I'd have to agree with GP here. It wasn't at all obvious for almost anyone that Intel can get so quickly to the level of performance Arc offers. After decades of bottom of the barrel iGPUs in a span of 2-3 years they went to decent iGPUs, and then decent dGPUs (according to those who touched them). That's quite an achievement in a market that all but solidified around the 1.5 incumbents.
PaulsWallet 4y ago
I have to believe that Intel's GPU division will be fine just because I refuse to believe that any executive over at Intel is short sighted enough to believe that Intel was going to leap frog AMD and Nvidia or even make a profit within the next 3-5 years. It took AMD years to get it right with Ryzen and AMD still hasn't had a "Ryzen moment" with their GPU. The fact that Intel's GPU can even compete with AMD and Nvidia is a feat of engineering magic. Intel should just take the L and make it a loss leader and grind it out for the long haul.
- deleted 4y ago
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- Miraste 4y ago
  I would say RDNA/RDNA2 has delivered Ryzen-level improvements. It didn't result in Ryzen-level fanfare because Nvidia improves their GPUs every product cycle instead of sitting still like Intel was doing with processors. I don't think Intel has the leadership or, after their Boeingization (getting rid of senior engineers) the engineering ability to compete with Nvidia.
- eek2121 4y ago
  AMD has beat NVIDIA in terms of performance and/or perf/watt more than NVIDIA has beaten AMD. Just because NVIDIA has larger market share does not mean they were/are winning. If you need to go back and look at history, look at history. The majority of the time AMD beat the snot out of NVIDIA. The lead only stopped because of a certain prior CEO doing some really dumb stuff. The GPUs you see today (6900xt/6950xt) are the first of a generation of recovery. They are the 'Ryzen 1xxx' equivalents. Note I'm not an AMD fanboy, but I've 3D in my lifetime was popularized by 3DFX, so I remember the entire saga.
- HelloNurse 4y ago
  Before delivering good products that customers buy, they need decent products that customers take seriously. Current ARC graphics cards are, reportedly, not even taken seriously by their manufacturers.
protomyth 4y ago
I'm not sure how you can give up the GPU market when Intel aspires to be a performance leader and must have some plan to get back into mobile. They have a GPU with bad drivers right now, but instead of axing the division, it would seem more appropriate to get some folks who know software. The duopoly of NVIDIA and AMD are a lot more vulnerable than other players in other markets Intel could expand into.
- CameronNemo 4y ago
  Aren't mobile devices usually iGPU only? I can't think of a single mobile device with a discrete GPU. Maybe some convertible tablets?
  - ncmncm 4y ago
    All the laptops over $1k have discrete GPUs on top of the integrated Intel or AMD one.
    - CameronNemo 4y ago
      That's... Not true. Anyway I don't really consider laptops to be "mobile devices", but that is my quirk I guess.
- ncmncm 4y ago
  Intel somehow has the laptop makers absolutely flogging Intel CPUs, to the extent of actually concealing AMD builds from the online picker unless you specifically identify them by model number.
  - rasz 4y ago
    Its a continuation of meet comp bribing scheme, same that earned $1B penalty they somehow managed to dodge recently https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-01-26/intel-wins-eu-court-bid-to-annul-1-2-billion-antitrust-fine https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-01-26/intel-win... OEMs/ODMs/System Integrators get awards for shipping intel products, but instead of pure cash like in 2000 its hardware and rebates. Until very recently intel was giving out SSDs for free, probably switched to something else since they dont make those anymore.
pyrolistical 4y ago
Short term is may seem like a smart move to cut AXG but long term if it’s a must have. All three AMD, nvidia and Apple are unifying general purpose compute with graphics. That is the direction the world is going. Unless intel had a new arch trick up their sleeves they will be soon made redundant
- barkingcat 4y ago
  since everyone is on the hybrid computing bandwagon, might as well bring the axg on core and make a xeon with axg on the same package. that's what apple is doing, might as well give that a try.
- nicoburns 4y ago
  Yes, the insight being that “graphics” is actually mostly just highly parallel compute. So if you don’t have a graphics solution then you’re unlikely to have a competitive compute solution either. It’s not quite there yet, but I think it will be soon.
- paulmd 4y ago
  And actually not just graphics but the world is moving towards these highly unified solutions in general, the hardware world is going "full stack" and companies need to be able to offer top-to-bottom solutions that solve the whole problem without relying on someone else's silicon. Same reason NVIDIA wanted to buy ARM. Intel and NVIDIA are in trouble unless they can make that leap. Long-term it's the same reason AMD bought ATI too, that vision just took a long time to come to fruition. Remember, they "acquired" their way to success as well, RTG wasn't something that AMD indigeneously developed themselves either... just like AMD bought Xilinx and Intel bought Altera.
bearjaws 4y ago
I really don't understand how Intels drivers for Alchemist are so flawed, they have integrated GPUs that run esports titles at 100+fps. It seemed to me scaling the existing architecture to have more processing and bandwidth should have yielded a very competitive GPU while reusing their existing talent pool. Instead we end up with a very buggy, very specialized (needs resizable bar?, DX12 works well but not other runtimes?) that aren't required today for Intel graphics.
- wtallis 4y ago
  One pattern that has emerged is many of the performance problems come from VRAM no longer being carved out of main system RAM. The drivers now have to be careful about which pool of memory they allocate from, and for CPU access to VRAM without ReBAR the access patterns matter a lot more than they used to.
  - wmf 4y ago
    It's amazing that fixing that one thing takes over three years.
- terafo 4y ago
  DX12 works well cause it was designed to make driver development easier. Last gen APIs required specific optimizations in drivers for every single game in order for it to run well. And as far as I heard the problem isn't in drivers, problem is in hardware scheduler that have some kind of limitations that become more apparent with scale. It might be impossible to fix this without retape.
khitchdee 4y ago
If I were Pat Gelsinger, I would keep PC Client, DataCenter and FPGA(Altera). Get rid of everything else.
- voxadam 4y ago
  Their AI inference coprocessors seem to be doing pretty well.
keepquestioning 4y ago
It’s clear Raja Koduri is the wrong choice.
- tibbydudeza 4y ago
  Was the Arc disaster his making ???.
  - arcanus 4y ago
    Yes. As the executive in charge of this business unit (since 2016!) he owns execution.
    - tibbydudeza 4y ago
      Hope it does not end up like Larrabee - really don't get why Intel is competing in this market segment - Integrated graphics yes but surely there is bigger and more important fish to fry (Amd Zen) elsewhere ???.
      - PolCPP 4y ago
        They don't want to depend on third party companies to complete their stack offering on the datacenter. It's the same way as why Nvidia wanted ARM, but on the other direction (CPU/GPU)
ksec 4y ago
>Started in 2016 the dGPU group snatched showboater Raja Koduri away from AMD We are in 2022 I still dont understand why Raja is popular. One of the reason why I have been extremely sceptical of Intel's GPU since the very beginning. To the point I got a lot of bashing on Anandtech and HN. And I have been mentioning drivers as the major concern since 2016. Citing PowerVR Kyro on Desktop as an example. Even pointing that out on Twitter. With one of the Intel Engineers on the GPU team replied something as "GPU Drivers is a solved problem". I do love to be wrong. But it is increasingly looking like another item to be added to my book of prediction that came true.
- Miraste 4y ago
  I'm with you here. At AMD, Koduri released GPU after GPU that was slow, terribly hot and inefficient, plagued by driver problems, and overpriced. He left on terrible terms for a number of reasons, but one of them was his complaint that Radeon was underfunded and deprioritized, so he couldn't compete with Nvidia. Here we are, six years of practically unlimited funding and support from a company with a greater R&D budget than AMD's entire 2016 gross... and he's done the exact same thing.
  - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
    >and he's done the exact same thing. That's how failing upwards works in this racket. As long as you have a great looking resume at a few giants in the industry with some fancy titles to boot, you're set for life regardless of how incompetent you are.
    - ksec 4y ago
      I was surprised he got promotion and even more resources under Pat. I dont think Intel should axe their GPU, but considering Pat Gelsinger has zero BS tolerance, I would not be suspired if someone replace Raja if he doesn't deliver within the next 12 months or so.
- PolCPP 4y ago
  And ironically after he left AMD started improving on the drivers
klelatti 4y ago
To be successful as a new entrant against powerful incumbent players you need to have some sort of competitive angle / advantage. Intel used to have a fabrication lead but chose not to make dGPUs whilst they had that and allowed Nvidia and AMD to own the market. Really struggling to see this leading to a successful outcome - even if they produce a reasonable product it’s likely to be third placed which is not a comfortable place to be.
Aromasin 4y ago
I'm still convinced by Intel's and Pat's XPU strategy. Having a well rounded portfolio of CPUs, GPUs, SoCs, and FPGAs that all work flawlessly, alongside a comprehensive software environment to make cross-platform development easier (their OneAPI stack) is a dream for any OEM/ODM; provided it works. Their issue at the moment isn't strategy. It's execution. Axing their GPU division would only hurt their current plan, and do nothing to fix the the systematic problem that they're missing deadline's and shipping incomplete products. From the outside looking in, it seems like there's some fat that needs trimming and people aren't pulling their weight. If they can scale back to efficient team and org sizes, cut the side projects, and focus on excellent software and hardware validation, I can see them pulling this off and Pat being lauded as a hero.
- PaulHoule 4y ago
  People I know who develop high performance systems are so indifferent to OpenCL it's hard for me to picture what could make people develop for OpenCL. There is such a long term history of failure here that somebody has to make a very strong case that the next time is going to be different and I've never seen anyone at Intel try that or even recognize that history of failure.
  - Miraste 4y ago
    It's unfortunate, but the reality is it would take an act of god to unseat CUDA at this point.
    - tambourine_man 4y ago
      Unless someone beats them in the hardware front. GPUs that are 30-50% faster (or just as fast but 30-50% cheaper). I could see Apple and AMD, working with TSMCs latest node, stepping up to the challenge.
      - ceeplusplus 4y ago
        No way 30-50% is enough. You need 2x at least, if not more. There is a deep rooted ecosystem of CUDA apps. You would need to have at least 2-3 generations of 2x lead to get people to switch.
rossdavidh 4y ago
"Of the groups Gelsinger got rid of was Optane (started in 2017, never made a profit), sold McAfee (bought in 2010, never made a profit), and shut down the drone group (started in 2015, never made a profit). Last year, Intel sold off its NAND business to Hynix, giving up its only Chinese fab, and sold off its money-losing sports group; and this year, the company shut down its Russian operations. Since Gelsinger’s return, Intel has dumped six businesses, saving $1.5 billion in operating costs and loses." None of these groups are remotely as close to Intel's core (pun intended) business, as this one. It is certainly true that this division needs to produce better results, but that's true of the company as well. Chopping this one, unless there is some plan for a replacement strategy in the GPU space, would be a bad sign, as it would suggest a company circling the drain/milking the existing winners, unable to make any new winners.
- tinco 4y ago
  The drones were great, and expensive. I don't get how they couldn't make a profit. They only had one model too, it took DJI another 4 years before it had an acceptable rival in the industrial class. It was a simple drone too, it couldn't have been that heavy of a burden on their financials, why not just keep it around for a couple years longer, the drone industry is clearly still maturing.
Scramblejams 4y ago
Intel is now facing a much stronger AMD and Nvidia, plus six start-ups Who are the six startups? It mentions four are in China, and two in the US.
- killingtime74 4y ago
  Vaporware unless we can buy their cards anyway
csense 4y ago
What the heck about GPU development costs $2 billion? That seems obscenely expensive. Anyone who has detailed knowledge of the industry care to weigh in on what they might actually spending that money on?
- killingtime74 4y ago
  I think the article aludes to it being massive payroll
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago
  Try hiring GPU experts and see how "easy" it is. It's a very small talent pool.
- terafo 4y ago
  Drivers and couple attempts that they shot behind the barn(but made it into silicon).
- ncmncm 4y ago
  You have to bribe game houses enough to optimize for you, in an amount that is a substantial fraction of their net profit.
  - rasz 4y ago
    Intel is no stranger to that practice: https://www.mobygames.com/images/covers/l/51358-pod-windows-front-cover.jpg https://www.mobygames.com/images/covers/l/51358-pod-windows-... https://www.hardware.fr/articles/95-5/jeux-optimises.html https://www.hardware.fr/articles/95-5/jeux-optimises.html https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28237085 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28237085 "I can tell you that Intel gave companies $1 million for "Optimized" games for marketing such."
- icegreentea2 4y ago
  $2 billion isn't completely out of line. Nvidia annual R&D budget from 2019 onwards averages to like ~$3.5 billion per year (https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/NVDA/nvidia/research-development-expenses https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/NVDA/nvidia/resear...). Intel needs to buy talent, make shit loads of mistakes, try as hard as they can to squeeze as much driver optimization as they can in reduce the driver gap as much as possible.
Kon-Peki 4y ago
Apple Silicon has absolutely proven that an integrated gpGPU is a must on modern consumer chips. Intel has to slog through this. Forget about CUDA support - Apple is going to kill that monopoly for them.
windowsrookie 4y ago
Intel quit making ARM cpus right before smartphones took off. They sold off their LTE modem division essentially giving Qualcomm a monopoly. Now they might give up on GPUs. Intel is way too quick to give up. Imagine if they had continued to make ARM CPUs. Apple may have never pursued making their own chips. Intel CPU's + modems could be competing with Qualcomm for every mobile device sold today.
- UncleOxidant 4y ago
  I think it was more hubris that caused them to stop making ARM chips as opposed to "giving up". They were still in the "x86 everywhere" mindset back then. Remember when they were trying to get x86 into phones & tablets?
spookie 4y ago
>The drumroll never stopped, even to the point of talking about code improvements in a Linux driver—Linux? That’s Intel’s first choice? This phrase does it, this guy has no clue whatsoever. Baffling.
fancyfredbot 4y ago
Intel can make money from deep learning accelerators even if they fail to get the gaming market this generation.
pclmulqdq 4y ago
Intel missed a huge opportunity by killing Larrabee and the Xeon Phi. They aren't going to be able to beat CUDA with the "oneAPI" software layer they are trying to offer: an outgrowth of OpenCL is not going to be popular with people who care about the performance of their devices. The only programming API that Intel has and CUDA can't beat is x86 assembly. In my opinion, when they wanted to get back into graphics, they should have brought back Xeon Phi, maybe doubled the vector width (and added some special units), and hired some engineers from HFT firms to figure out how to make it pretend to be a fast GPU.
- selimthegrim 4y ago
  Xeon Phi was bought by who, universities and oil and gas? It seems like Intel is wary of totally swapping out clientele these days.
- p_l 4y ago
  Early Xeon Phi still had texture units, afaik, and some bits of display circuitry, you just couldn't get that to work anymore
jiggawatts 4y ago
> Four new companies have started up in China, and two new ones announced in the US. Err... what? Who's got the $billions to compete with NVIDIA and AMD? If Intel couldn't do it with $3.5B invested and existing silicon design experience and a bunch of fabs... who can!?
- rasz 4y ago
  So far Chinese subsidy scams produced a few very loud paper successes with non functioning display case prototypes.

75 points by oumua_don17 4y ago

None of the other items Intel has let go of are an existential must have. GPUs are a must have in any computer big or small. Raw number crunching is core to the very profitable HPC market. Players like Nvidia have fully custom interlinks that threaten to dry up even the CPU sales Intel still gets in this market. GPU is a focus on mobile where expectations have been much raised. This group is supposedly 6 years old. But reciprocally, the other players have been pouring money in over decades. GPUs are fantastically complicated systems. Getting started here is enormously challenging, with vast demands. Just shipping is a huge accomplishment. Time to grow into it & adjust is necessary. It's such a huge challenge, and I really hope AXG is given the time, resources, iterations, & access to fabs it'll take to get up to speed.

khitchdee 4y ago
Intel should double down on its core business which is selling x86 chips for Windows PCs. If it loses to AMD+TSMC here, there's nowhere left to hide. IFS is very long term and a new business opportunity in a market where Intel is not the leader. x86 for Windows is their bread and butter. They need to throw everything else out and downsize to just excelling at what they've always done. My guess is AXG is a separate division than the division that makes the graphics for their core microprocessors.
- mschuster91 4y ago
  > Intel should double down on its core business which is selling x86 chips for Windows PCs. If it loses to AMD+TSMC here, there's nowhere left to hide. IFS is very long term and a new business opportunity in a market where Intel is not the leader. The very second someone else but Apple brings a competitive ARM desktop CPU to the market, it's game over for Intel. x86_64 literally cannot compete with modern ARM designs simply because of how much utter garbage from about thirty years worth of history it has accumulated and absolutely needs to support in the future because even the boot process still requires all that crap, whereas ARM was never shy about cutting out stuff and breaking backwards compatibility to stay performant. The only luck that Intel has at the moment is that Samsung and Qualcomm are dumpster fires - Samsung has enough problems getting a phone to run at a halfway decent performance with their Exynos line and Qualcomm managed to completely botch their exclusive deal with Microsoft [1] (hardly surprising to anyone who has ever had the misfortune to have to work with their crap). A small startup that is not bound by ages of legacy and corporate red tape should be able to complete such a project - Annapurna Labs have proven it's possible to break into the server ARM CPU market well enough to get acquired by Amazon. [1] https://www.xda-developers.com/qualcomm-exclusivity-deal-microsoft-windows-on-arm/ https://www.xda-developers.com/qualcomm-exclusivity-deal-mic...
  - khitchdee 4y ago
    Apple will always be niche because they are too expensive. ARM based PC client processors accounted for about 9% of the total market. But I don't expect that number will grow a lot higher due to cost of Macs. Also, you can't bring out a desktop PC based on Linux because that a very slowly growing market segment and MacOS is proprietary. Don't think Apple will start another PowerComputing type scenario where they open their platform to others. It's not a matter of performance for this reason (price). So, on Windows, assuming Macs don't take away any more market share from Windows, they need to beat AMD+TSMC.
    - spookie 4y ago
      > Also, you can't bring out a desktop PC based on Linux because that a very slowly growing market segment Wouldn't bet on that one
    - mschuster91 4y ago
      > So, on Windows, assuming Macs don't take away any more market share from Windows, they need to beat AMD+TSMC. No. All it needs is - Microsoft and Qualcomm breaking their unholy and IMHO questionably legal alliance - an ARM CPU vendor willing to do the same as Apple did and add support for accelerating translation of x86 code (IIRC, memory access models/barriers are done differently between x86 and ARM, and Apple simply extended their cores to be able to use the same memory access/barrier model as x86 on translated-x86 threads) - an ARM CPU vendor willing to implement basic functionality like PCIe actually according to spec - even the Raspberry Pi which is the closest you can get to a mass market general-purpose ARM computer has that broken [1] - someone (tm) willing to define a common standard of bootup sequence/standard feature set. Might be possible that UEFI fills the role; the current ARM bootloaders are a hot mess compared to the old and tried BIOS/boot sector x86 approach, and most (!) ARM CPUs/BSPs aren't exactly built with "the hardware attached to the chips may change at will" in mind. Rosetta isn't patented to my knowledge, absolutely nothing is stopping Microsoft from doing the same as part of Windows. [1] https://www.hackster.io/news/jeff-geerling-shows-off-an-amd-radeon-gpu-running-on-the-raspberry-pi-cm4-after-a-fashion-3f2fd7c5b516 https://www.hackster.io/news/jeff-geerling-shows-off-an-amd-...
pjmlp 4y ago
Intel famously used to lie on their OpenGL drivers, asserting features were supported, but were actually software rendered. Larrabe was shown at GDCE 2009 as if going to render the competition useless, then faded away. Their GPU debugger marketing sessions used to be focused on how to optimise games for integrated GPUs. I really don't get how they keep missing the mark versus AMD and NVidia in both GPU design and developer tooling.
- pinewurst 4y ago
  Don't forget Intel's world-beating i740!
  - Miraste 4y ago
    Ah, the i740. Because VRAM is a conspiracy cooked up by 3DFX and Nvidia to take your money, and real gamers don't need any.
  - muro 4y ago
    Anyone who bought one will not forgive them that one.
ChuckNorris89 4y ago
>None of the other items Intel has let go of are an existential must have. Except mobile ARM chips and mobile LTE modems, both of which Intel sold off, and those are some of the most desirable things to make right now. Just ask Quallcomm.
- mrandish 4y ago
  Yep. Competent mobile ARM and LTE modem cores would be very nice to have in their tech stack right about now. I think a credible (if not fully competent), GPU stack is pretty essential for strategic relevance going forward. This seems like something they have to make work.

tadfisher 4y ago

> Since Q1’21 when Intel started reporting on its dGPU group, known as AXG or accelerated graphics, the company has lost a staggering $2.1 billion and has very little to show for it. You know, except for a competitive desktop GPU. I'm actually impressed that it didn't take much longer and much more money to catch up with AMD and NVIDIA, given that those two were in business when 3dfx was still around.

ChuckNorris89 4y ago
I don't know why your painting Intel as some new entry GPU beginner here, but FYI, Intel had been making and selling integrated GPUs for over 20 years now, to the point they pretty much dominate the GPU market share in sheer numbers (most desktops and laptops, even older Macs, sold in the last 10-15 years are most likely gonna have an Intel chip with integrated graphics, regardless if it's used or not in favor of a discrete GPU). Sure, their iGPU offerings were never competitive for gaming or complex tasks, but given it came for "free" with your CPU, it was good enough for most businesses and consumers and was a also a major boon during the GPU shortage where gamers who build systems with AMD chips were left unable to use their PC while those who went Intel could at least use their PC for some productivity and entertainment until they could buy a dGPU. So it's not like they had to start absolutely from scratch here. In fact, Intel's latest integrated GPU architecture, Xe, was so good, it was beating the integrated Vega graphics AMD was shipping till the 6xxx series with RDNA2 in 2022, while also killing the demand for Nvidia's low end dGPUs for desktops (GT 1050) and mobile (MX350). Xe was also the first GPU on the market with AV1 decode support. So given this, Intel is definitely not a failure in the GPU space, they're definitely doing some things right but they just can't box in the ring with "Ali" yet. Anyone thinking they can leapfrog Radeon and Nvidia at their first attempt would be foolish. Intel should take on the losses on the GPU division for a few more years and push through.
- buran77 4y ago
  I'd have to agree with GP here. It wasn't at all obvious for almost anyone that Intel can get so quickly to the level of performance Arc offers. After decades of bottom of the barrel iGPUs in a span of 2-3 years they went to decent iGPUs, and then decent dGPUs (according to those who touched them). That's quite an achievement in a market that all but solidified around the 1.5 incumbents.

PaulsWallet 4y ago

I have to believe that Intel's GPU division will be fine just because I refuse to believe that any executive over at Intel is short sighted enough to believe that Intel was going to leap frog AMD and Nvidia or even make a profit within the next 3-5 years. It took AMD years to get it right with Ryzen and AMD still hasn't had a "Ryzen moment" with their GPU. The fact that Intel's GPU can even compete with AMD and Nvidia is a feat of engineering magic. Intel should just take the L and make it a loss leader and grind it out for the long haul.

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Miraste 4y ago
I would say RDNA/RDNA2 has delivered Ryzen-level improvements. It didn't result in Ryzen-level fanfare because Nvidia improves their GPUs every product cycle instead of sitting still like Intel was doing with processors. I don't think Intel has the leadership or, after their Boeingization (getting rid of senior engineers) the engineering ability to compete with Nvidia.
eek2121 4y ago
AMD has beat NVIDIA in terms of performance and/or perf/watt more than NVIDIA has beaten AMD. Just because NVIDIA has larger market share does not mean they were/are winning. If you need to go back and look at history, look at history. The majority of the time AMD beat the snot out of NVIDIA. The lead only stopped because of a certain prior CEO doing some really dumb stuff. The GPUs you see today (6900xt/6950xt) are the first of a generation of recovery. They are the 'Ryzen 1xxx' equivalents. Note I'm not an AMD fanboy, but I've 3D in my lifetime was popularized by 3DFX, so I remember the entire saga.
HelloNurse 4y ago
Before delivering good products that customers buy, they need decent products that customers take seriously. Current ARC graphics cards are, reportedly, not even taken seriously by their manufacturers.

protomyth 4y ago

I'm not sure how you can give up the GPU market when Intel aspires to be a performance leader and must have some plan to get back into mobile. They have a GPU with bad drivers right now, but instead of axing the division, it would seem more appropriate to get some folks who know software. The duopoly of NVIDIA and AMD are a lot more vulnerable than other players in other markets Intel could expand into.

CameronNemo 4y ago
Aren't mobile devices usually iGPU only? I can't think of a single mobile device with a discrete GPU. Maybe some convertible tablets?
- ncmncm 4y ago
  All the laptops over $1k have discrete GPUs on top of the integrated Intel or AMD one.
  - CameronNemo 4y ago
    That's... Not true. Anyway I don't really consider laptops to be "mobile devices", but that is my quirk I guess.
ncmncm 4y ago
Intel somehow has the laptop makers absolutely flogging Intel CPUs, to the extent of actually concealing AMD builds from the online picker unless you specifically identify them by model number.
- rasz 4y ago
  Its a continuation of meet comp bribing scheme, same that earned $1B penalty they somehow managed to dodge recently https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-01-26/intel-wins-eu-court-bid-to-annul-1-2-billion-antitrust-fine https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-01-26/intel-win... OEMs/ODMs/System Integrators get awards for shipping intel products, but instead of pure cash like in 2000 its hardware and rebates. Until very recently intel was giving out SSDs for free, probably switched to something else since they dont make those anymore.

pyrolistical 4y ago

Short term is may seem like a smart move to cut AXG but long term if it’s a must have. All three AMD, nvidia and Apple are unifying general purpose compute with graphics. That is the direction the world is going. Unless intel had a new arch trick up their sleeves they will be soon made redundant

barkingcat 4y ago
since everyone is on the hybrid computing bandwagon, might as well bring the axg on core and make a xeon with axg on the same package. that's what apple is doing, might as well give that a try.
nicoburns 4y ago
Yes, the insight being that “graphics” is actually mostly just highly parallel compute. So if you don’t have a graphics solution then you’re unlikely to have a competitive compute solution either. It’s not quite there yet, but I think it will be soon.
paulmd 4y ago
And actually not just graphics but the world is moving towards these highly unified solutions in general, the hardware world is going "full stack" and companies need to be able to offer top-to-bottom solutions that solve the whole problem without relying on someone else's silicon. Same reason NVIDIA wanted to buy ARM. Intel and NVIDIA are in trouble unless they can make that leap. Long-term it's the same reason AMD bought ATI too, that vision just took a long time to come to fruition. Remember, they "acquired" their way to success as well, RTG wasn't something that AMD indigeneously developed themselves either... just like AMD bought Xilinx and Intel bought Altera.

bearjaws 4y ago

I really don't understand how Intels drivers for Alchemist are so flawed, they have integrated GPUs that run esports titles at 100+fps. It seemed to me scaling the existing architecture to have more processing and bandwidth should have yielded a very competitive GPU while reusing their existing talent pool. Instead we end up with a very buggy, very specialized (needs resizable bar?, DX12 works well but not other runtimes?) that aren't required today for Intel graphics.

wtallis 4y ago
One pattern that has emerged is many of the performance problems come from VRAM no longer being carved out of main system RAM. The drivers now have to be careful about which pool of memory they allocate from, and for CPU access to VRAM without ReBAR the access patterns matter a lot more than they used to.
- wmf 4y ago
  It's amazing that fixing that one thing takes over three years.
terafo 4y ago
DX12 works well cause it was designed to make driver development easier. Last gen APIs required specific optimizations in drivers for every single game in order for it to run well. And as far as I heard the problem isn't in drivers, problem is in hardware scheduler that have some kind of limitations that become more apparent with scale. It might be impossible to fix this without retape.

khitchdee 4y ago

If I were Pat Gelsinger, I would keep PC Client, DataCenter and FPGA(Altera). Get rid of everything else.

voxadam 4y ago
Their AI inference coprocessors seem to be doing pretty well.

keepquestioning 4y ago

It’s clear Raja Koduri is the wrong choice.

tibbydudeza 4y ago
Was the Arc disaster his making ???.
- arcanus 4y ago
  Yes. As the executive in charge of this business unit (since 2016!) he owns execution.
  - tibbydudeza 4y ago
    Hope it does not end up like Larrabee - really don't get why Intel is competing in this market segment - Integrated graphics yes but surely there is bigger and more important fish to fry (Amd Zen) elsewhere ???.
    - PolCPP 4y ago
      They don't want to depend on third party companies to complete their stack offering on the datacenter. It's the same way as why Nvidia wanted ARM, but on the other direction (CPU/GPU)

ksec 4y ago

>Started in 2016 the dGPU group snatched showboater Raja Koduri away from AMD We are in 2022 I still dont understand why Raja is popular. One of the reason why I have been extremely sceptical of Intel's GPU since the very beginning. To the point I got a lot of bashing on Anandtech and HN. And I have been mentioning drivers as the major concern since 2016. Citing PowerVR Kyro on Desktop as an example. Even pointing that out on Twitter. With one of the Intel Engineers on the GPU team replied something as "GPU Drivers is a solved problem". I do love to be wrong. But it is increasingly looking like another item to be added to my book of prediction that came true.

Miraste 4y ago
I'm with you here. At AMD, Koduri released GPU after GPU that was slow, terribly hot and inefficient, plagued by driver problems, and overpriced. He left on terrible terms for a number of reasons, but one of them was his complaint that Radeon was underfunded and deprioritized, so he couldn't compete with Nvidia. Here we are, six years of practically unlimited funding and support from a company with a greater R&D budget than AMD's entire 2016 gross... and he's done the exact same thing.
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago
  >and he's done the exact same thing. That's how failing upwards works in this racket. As long as you have a great looking resume at a few giants in the industry with some fancy titles to boot, you're set for life regardless of how incompetent you are.
  - ksec 4y ago
    I was surprised he got promotion and even more resources under Pat. I dont think Intel should axe their GPU, but considering Pat Gelsinger has zero BS tolerance, I would not be suspired if someone replace Raja if he doesn't deliver within the next 12 months or so.
PolCPP 4y ago
And ironically after he left AMD started improving on the drivers

klelatti 4y ago

To be successful as a new entrant against powerful incumbent players you need to have some sort of competitive angle / advantage. Intel used to have a fabrication lead but chose not to make dGPUs whilst they had that and allowed Nvidia and AMD to own the market. Really struggling to see this leading to a successful outcome - even if they produce a reasonable product it’s likely to be third placed which is not a comfortable place to be.

Aromasin 4y ago

I'm still convinced by Intel's and Pat's XPU strategy. Having a well rounded portfolio of CPUs, GPUs, SoCs, and FPGAs that all work flawlessly, alongside a comprehensive software environment to make cross-platform development easier (their OneAPI stack) is a dream for any OEM/ODM; provided it works. Their issue at the moment isn't strategy. It's execution. Axing their GPU division would only hurt their current plan, and do nothing to fix the the systematic problem that they're missing deadline's and shipping incomplete products. From the outside looking in, it seems like there's some fat that needs trimming and people aren't pulling their weight. If they can scale back to efficient team and org sizes, cut the side projects, and focus on excellent software and hardware validation, I can see them pulling this off and Pat being lauded as a hero.

PaulHoule 4y ago
People I know who develop high performance systems are so indifferent to OpenCL it's hard for me to picture what could make people develop for OpenCL. There is such a long term history of failure here that somebody has to make a very strong case that the next time is going to be different and I've never seen anyone at Intel try that or even recognize that history of failure.
- Miraste 4y ago
  It's unfortunate, but the reality is it would take an act of god to unseat CUDA at this point.
  - tambourine_man 4y ago
    Unless someone beats them in the hardware front. GPUs that are 30-50% faster (or just as fast but 30-50% cheaper). I could see Apple and AMD, working with TSMCs latest node, stepping up to the challenge.
    - ceeplusplus 4y ago
      No way 30-50% is enough. You need 2x at least, if not more. There is a deep rooted ecosystem of CUDA apps. You would need to have at least 2-3 generations of 2x lead to get people to switch.

rossdavidh 4y ago

"Of the groups Gelsinger got rid of was Optane (started in 2017, never made a profit), sold McAfee (bought in 2010, never made a profit), and shut down the drone group (started in 2015, never made a profit). Last year, Intel sold off its NAND business to Hynix, giving up its only Chinese fab, and sold off its money-losing sports group; and this year, the company shut down its Russian operations. Since Gelsinger’s return, Intel has dumped six businesses, saving $1.5 billion in operating costs and loses." None of these groups are remotely as close to Intel's core (pun intended) business, as this one. It is certainly true that this division needs to produce better results, but that's true of the company as well. Chopping this one, unless there is some plan for a replacement strategy in the GPU space, would be a bad sign, as it would suggest a company circling the drain/milking the existing winners, unable to make any new winners.

tinco 4y ago
The drones were great, and expensive. I don't get how they couldn't make a profit. They only had one model too, it took DJI another 4 years before it had an acceptable rival in the industrial class. It was a simple drone too, it couldn't have been that heavy of a burden on their financials, why not just keep it around for a couple years longer, the drone industry is clearly still maturing.

Scramblejams 4y ago

Intel is now facing a much stronger AMD and Nvidia, plus six start-ups Who are the six startups? It mentions four are in China, and two in the US.

killingtime74 4y ago
Vaporware unless we can buy their cards anyway

csense 4y ago

What the heck about GPU development costs $2 billion? That seems obscenely expensive. Anyone who has detailed knowledge of the industry care to weigh in on what they might actually spending that money on?

killingtime74 4y ago
I think the article aludes to it being massive payroll
ChuckNorris89 4y ago
Try hiring GPU experts and see how "easy" it is. It's a very small talent pool.
terafo 4y ago
Drivers and couple attempts that they shot behind the barn(but made it into silicon).
ncmncm 4y ago
You have to bribe game houses enough to optimize for you, in an amount that is a substantial fraction of their net profit.
- rasz 4y ago
  Intel is no stranger to that practice: https://www.mobygames.com/images/covers/l/51358-pod-windows-front-cover.jpg https://www.mobygames.com/images/covers/l/51358-pod-windows-... https://www.hardware.fr/articles/95-5/jeux-optimises.html https://www.hardware.fr/articles/95-5/jeux-optimises.html https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28237085 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28237085 "I can tell you that Intel gave companies $1 million for "Optimized" games for marketing such."
icegreentea2 4y ago
$2 billion isn't completely out of line. Nvidia annual R&D budget from 2019 onwards averages to like ~$3.5 billion per year (https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/NVDA/nvidia/research-development-expenses https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/NVDA/nvidia/resear...). Intel needs to buy talent, make shit loads of mistakes, try as hard as they can to squeeze as much driver optimization as they can in reduce the driver gap as much as possible.

Kon-Peki 4y ago

Apple Silicon has absolutely proven that an integrated gpGPU is a must on modern consumer chips. Intel has to slog through this. Forget about CUDA support - Apple is going to kill that monopoly for them.

windowsrookie 4y ago

Intel quit making ARM cpus right before smartphones took off. They sold off their LTE modem division essentially giving Qualcomm a monopoly. Now they might give up on GPUs. Intel is way too quick to give up. Imagine if they had continued to make ARM CPUs. Apple may have never pursued making their own chips. Intel CPU's + modems could be competing with Qualcomm for every mobile device sold today.

UncleOxidant 4y ago
I think it was more hubris that caused them to stop making ARM chips as opposed to "giving up". They were still in the "x86 everywhere" mindset back then. Remember when they were trying to get x86 into phones & tablets?

spookie 4y ago

>The drumroll never stopped, even to the point of talking about code improvements in a Linux driver—Linux? That’s Intel’s first choice? This phrase does it, this guy has no clue whatsoever. Baffling.

fancyfredbot 4y ago

Intel can make money from deep learning accelerators even if they fail to get the gaming market this generation.

pclmulqdq 4y ago

Intel missed a huge opportunity by killing Larrabee and the Xeon Phi. They aren't going to be able to beat CUDA with the "oneAPI" software layer they are trying to offer: an outgrowth of OpenCL is not going to be popular with people who care about the performance of their devices. The only programming API that Intel has and CUDA can't beat is x86 assembly. In my opinion, when they wanted to get back into graphics, they should have brought back Xeon Phi, maybe doubled the vector width (and added some special units), and hired some engineers from HFT firms to figure out how to make it pretend to be a fast GPU.

selimthegrim 4y ago
Xeon Phi was bought by who, universities and oil and gas? It seems like Intel is wary of totally swapping out clientele these days.
p_l 4y ago
Early Xeon Phi still had texture units, afaik, and some bits of display circuitry, you just couldn't get that to work anymore

jiggawatts 4y ago

> Four new companies have started up in China, and two new ones announced in the US. Err... what? Who's got the $billions to compete with NVIDIA and AMD? If Intel couldn't do it with $3.5B invested and existing silicon design experience and a bunch of fabs... who can!?

rasz 4y ago
So far Chinese subsidy scams produced a few very loud paper successes with non functioning display case prototypes.