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"battling" - what a failure Intel's graphics strategy has been

by outside1234 4y ago

m00x 4y ago
It's almost as if it's incredibly difficult to come out the gates with a competitive GPU.
- 29athrowaway 4y ago
  They gave NVIDIA and ARM many years of advantage. Now they are battling for their lives.
- bsder 4y ago
  It's really not that "difficult" to come out with a competitive GPU. However, it is really expensive. Even worse, from Intel's point of view, that enormous expense is almost all in software--which must be maintained for an extended amount of time and looks like a pure expense that will never be recouped. Even AMD is struggling with this. If Intel wanted to win this space, they needed to embed a bunch of staff in every major gaming company to make sure their engine runs well on the card. If Intel really wanted to displace Nvidia, they needed to completely open the specs and fund every single academic ML/AI/Graphic research team for the next 10 years if they used Intel cards.
  - worrycue 4y ago
    IMHO the real target is the enterprise market - and no one really cares about the gaming market anymore; look at Nvidia and AMD, both pretty much gave the middle finger to gamers with their high prices. The cynic in me feel that Intel is targeting the gaming market now because they have no shot in the enterprise world and they need _someone_ to fund their GPU development. Still it’s welcomed competition. Enjoy it while it last I guess.
    - touisteur 4y ago
      They'd maybe have a shot if they'd delivered anything in the enterprise market. Some of us are desperate to get a decent alternative to NVIDIA (AMD software story is... not there, but at least you can find some MI100 or MI250 gear if you're lucky) and Intel keeps not delivering the enterprise GPUs we're begging them for. Not even asking for a A100/H100 level thing now, but please break the A40 30-TFLOPS-and-lower-market (I even don't mind putting two 'max' 1100 for one A40...). Just start selling some gear to benchmark and port stuff to sycl dammit. No big OEM (HPE, Dell, Lenovo) has any to put in their servers (or at least they're not selling them to me) and why make it so hard. Either Intel doesn't remember how to sell server gear or they can't deliver anything but supercomputer stuff and EVEN THERE it's still spotty it seems.
      - simfree 4y ago
        AMD's software stack is usable if your willing to run a buggy distro like Ubuntu 22.04 LTS. You know it's buggy when the Ubuntu installer gets on the network just fine, but it misnames the Ethernet interface and chokes on the WiFi drivers firmware. Meanwhile Debian 10 and 11 just work on the same hardware with zero futzing or debugging m
        touisteur 4y ago
        Which is good for benchmarking, good for AMD (and interesting to hear, thanks) but doesn't bode well for production use. But AT LEAST you can buy some gear and get some dev mindshare and perf numbers.
0cf8612b2e1e 4y ago
I take a very different impression. Is the latest Intel GPU the best in class? Nope, not even close. Does it show strong potential after so little time? Absolutely. While I have my grievances with Intel, I wish them nothing but success so we are not stuck with a two-party GPU monopoly.
- BrentOzar 4y ago
  > Does it show strong potential after so little time? (Checks watch) Uh... Intel has been working on graphics for over twenty-five years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_graphics_processing_units https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_graphics_process... It seems like every 5 years, they say, "This is it, we're gonna be competitive this time," and ... they never are. Not even close.
  - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
    >Intel has been working on graphics for over twenty-five years Yeah but integrated graphics and dedicated desktop/server class GPUs for graphics, multimedia and general compute are two completely different beasts in terms of HW and SW. Qualcomm, ARM, Imagination also have been making GPU IPs since forever, but I doubt any of them can jump in the ring with Nvidia and AMD. Do you think they wouldn't like a piece of that lucrative market share? But they know that dislodging the Nvidia-AMD duopoly so late in the game is an exercise in futility.
    - KennyBlanken 4y ago
      They're not "completely different beasts", and one area Intel fell flat on their faces with was drivers. A company that has been making GPU drivers for so long shouldn't be releasing the utter dumpster fire that was their discreet GPU drivers. Reviewers found features were missing, didn't work, or were horribly unreliable.
      - userbinator 4y ago
        Their integrated GPU drivers weren't any better throughout; I've had to RE some in the past and I could imagine what their source looked like to generate some of the monstrosities I saw. They seriously should've just released the specifications for their GPUs and let the community write the drivers.

"battling" - what a failure Intel's graphics strategy has been

m00x 4y ago

It's almost as if it's incredibly difficult to come out the gates with a competitive GPU.

29athrowaway 4y ago
They gave NVIDIA and ARM many years of advantage. Now they are battling for their lives.
bsder 4y ago
It's really not that "difficult" to come out with a competitive GPU. However, it is really expensive. Even worse, from Intel's point of view, that enormous expense is almost all in software--which must be maintained for an extended amount of time and looks like a pure expense that will never be recouped. Even AMD is struggling with this. If Intel wanted to win this space, they needed to embed a bunch of staff in every major gaming company to make sure their engine runs well on the card. If Intel really wanted to displace Nvidia, they needed to completely open the specs and fund every single academic ML/AI/Graphic research team for the next 10 years if they used Intel cards.
- worrycue 4y ago
  IMHO the real target is the enterprise market - and no one really cares about the gaming market anymore; look at Nvidia and AMD, both pretty much gave the middle finger to gamers with their high prices. The cynic in me feel that Intel is targeting the gaming market now because they have no shot in the enterprise world and they need _someone_ to fund their GPU development. Still it’s welcomed competition. Enjoy it while it last I guess.
  - touisteur 4y ago
    They'd maybe have a shot if they'd delivered anything in the enterprise market. Some of us are desperate to get a decent alternative to NVIDIA (AMD software story is... not there, but at least you can find some MI100 or MI250 gear if you're lucky) and Intel keeps not delivering the enterprise GPUs we're begging them for. Not even asking for a A100/H100 level thing now, but please break the A40 30-TFLOPS-and-lower-market (I even don't mind putting two 'max' 1100 for one A40...). Just start selling some gear to benchmark and port stuff to sycl dammit. No big OEM (HPE, Dell, Lenovo) has any to put in their servers (or at least they're not selling them to me) and why make it so hard. Either Intel doesn't remember how to sell server gear or they can't deliver anything but supercomputer stuff and EVEN THERE it's still spotty it seems.
    - simfree 4y ago
      AMD's software stack is usable if your willing to run a buggy distro like Ubuntu 22.04 LTS. You know it's buggy when the Ubuntu installer gets on the network just fine, but it misnames the Ethernet interface and chokes on the WiFi drivers firmware. Meanwhile Debian 10 and 11 just work on the same hardware with zero futzing or debugging m
      - touisteur 4y ago
        Which is good for benchmarking, good for AMD (and interesting to hear, thanks) but doesn't bode well for production use. But AT LEAST you can buy some gear and get some dev mindshare and perf numbers.

0cf8612b2e1e 4y ago

I take a very different impression. Is the latest Intel GPU the best in class? Nope, not even close. Does it show strong potential after so little time? Absolutely. While I have my grievances with Intel, I wish them nothing but success so we are not stuck with a two-party GPU monopoly.

BrentOzar 4y ago
> Does it show strong potential after so little time? (Checks watch) Uh... Intel has been working on graphics for over twenty-five years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_graphics_processing_units https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_graphics_process... It seems like every 5 years, they say, "This is it, we're gonna be competitive this time," and ... they never are. Not even close.
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago
  >Intel has been working on graphics for over twenty-five years Yeah but integrated graphics and dedicated desktop/server class GPUs for graphics, multimedia and general compute are two completely different beasts in terms of HW and SW. Qualcomm, ARM, Imagination also have been making GPU IPs since forever, but I doubt any of them can jump in the ring with Nvidia and AMD. Do you think they wouldn't like a piece of that lucrative market share? But they know that dislodging the Nvidia-AMD duopoly so late in the game is an exercise in futility.
  - KennyBlanken 4y ago
    They're not "completely different beasts", and one area Intel fell flat on their faces with was drivers. A company that has been making GPU drivers for so long shouldn't be releasing the utter dumpster fire that was their discreet GPU drivers. Reviewers found features were missing, didn't work, or were horribly unreliable.
    - userbinator 4y ago
      Their integrated GPU drivers weren't any better throughout; I've had to RE some in the past and I could imagine what their source looked like to generate some of the monstrosities I saw. They seriously should've just released the specifications for their GPUs and let the community write the drivers.