Intel and Raja to Take on AMD and NVIDIA

FrgMstr

FrgMstr

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Jason Evangelho over at Forbes did a little checking around on this tweet by Ashraf Eassa, and found it to be true that Intel is planning on getting into the gaming GPU business...once again. So maybe this is all a bit more than rumor? I wonder how Intel feels about NVIDIA GPP? I would guess that if any company is going to sue over GPP, it is going to be Intel.

Eassa confirmed this with multiple sources, and I spoke independently with a source of my own to back up this statement. I'm confident this is more than rumor and speculation.
 
Maybe the pace in the gaming video card industry has slowed enough Intel thinks they can keep up now?

I just do not see them being able to put out anything competitive, unless they are pilfering personnel from AMD and NVidia to fill the jobs. Nope,...even then. It is the culture there.

Just do not see it ending well for them if they try this.
 
I am surprised Kyle hasn't thrown up a story yet about his "BFF" from AMD, Chris Hook, leaving the company.

Been some legendary fights between those two I believe LOL...
 
BSmith said:
Maybe the pace in the gaming video card industry has slowed enough Intel thinks they can keep up now?

I just do not see them being able to put out anything competitive, unless they are pilfering personnel from AMD and NVidia to fill the jobs. Nope,...even then. It is the culture there.

Just do not see it ending well for them if they try this.
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Intel has AMD on their side now. I think it can morph into Intel taking over AMD GPU division or forming a partnership.
I think Nvidia is a big threat to dominate computing via AI in a short period of time. Intel cannot compete by only making CPUs.
 
market could sure use a 3rd GPU brand/maker to keep the others on their toes

right now AMD seems content to sit on their hands and pump out mining cards and intergrated GPUS, and the low end market innovate nothing

Nvidia seems content to sit on old tech GPU's and sell to miners, holding back on new GPU's as they have no reason to release them
 
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Chimpee said:
I see Apple moving away from Intel or AMD in the future and just integrate their ARM processor on all of their products.
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They will try but won't be able to in their higher end Pro products. Macbook's can have an Apple chip, but Macbook Pro's must have Intel inside.
Otherwise, they should stop all computer sales if they take that step.
 
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Putz said:
market could sure use a 3rd GPU brand/maker to keep the others on their toes

right now AMD seems content to sit on their hands and pump out mining cards and intergrated GPUS, and the low end market innovate nothing

Nvidia seems content to sit on old tech GPU's and sell to miners, holding back on new GPU's as they have no reason to release them
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I do agree, but I feel Intel would quickly make it a duopoly again while adding their style of business tactics.

Edit: Reading my words, I realize my thoughts were narrow and focused on the discrete high end market. I really hope they play nice, share IP, cooperate and innovate while respecting each other's markets.
 
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The only hope of having a 3rd GPU competitor is if Imagination Technologies brought PowerVR back into the market. Almost all the patents for a GPU are owned by AMD or Nvidia.
 
variant said:
The only hope of having a 3rd GPU competitor is if Imagination Technologies brought PowerVR back into the market. Almost all the patents for a GPU are owned by AMD or Nvidia.
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That would certainly be welcome and their success in the phone market makes this a possibility.
 
Zion Halcyon said:
I am surprised Kyle hasn't thrown up a story yet about his "BFF" from AMD, Chris Hook, leaving the company.

Been some legendary fights between those two I believe LOL...
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Chris called me a couple days ago to let me know he was leaving. Chris and I have gone round and round for a couple decades now. He actually said on the phone call, "Kyle Bennett can be your best friend, and Kyle Bennett can be your worst enemy." Such is the nature of the PR/journalist relationship.

That all said, there has never been a time when we could not sit down and drink a beer together.
 
BSmith said:
Maybe the pace in the gaming video card industry has slowed enough Intel thinks they can keep up now?

I just do not see them being able to put out anything competitive, unless they are pilfering personnel from AMD and NVidia to fill the jobs. Nope,...even then. It is the culture there.

Just do not see it ending well for them if they try this.
Click to expand...

You might be surprised. Intel's got deep pockets and that's a big part of the battle. Unfortunately, they tried it before and it didn't go very well. That said, I never felt they tried that hard to be perfectly honest. The Intel 740 is the only discreet GPU they brought to market and it wasn't exactly well received. If they can get the right team together I think they can make a good product but only time will tell.
 
Intel is not "innovative" as in, they take the conservative route. Introducing a new, competitive gaming GPU is going to require bold, outside of the box action that Intel is not used to. Also, their track record of breaking into new market segments isn't exactly stellar. While I hope they can eat away at NVIDIA, I fear they are more poised to take shares more away from AMD and further entrench NVIDIA's market dominance.
 
3D hardware isn't as complicated as some people seem to think it is. The standards are well set at this point and building a GPU to conform to Vulcan / DX 12/11 spec isn't really rocket science if a company has the money to hire some engineers to do it. At one time we had Matrox/PowerVR/Nvidia/AMD/Intel/3DFX/3dLabs/Artx/Rendtion.... and 30 others I don't remember. Most got bought out for their IP a few moved to mobile / integrated opengl or other niche markets.

For anyone to catch up now they need to be able to able to tick a few boxes...
1) have the money to rush design a part to get in the game
2) have access to either enough market to justify designing on expensive top end fab processes or own your own top end fabs.
3) have access to IP to avoid law suits if you step on any patents.

I think Intel could easily tick off all 3 of those. Intel can throw the money at a team of engineers for a year pop out a next gen part. Intel doesn't have to worry about not having the cash to pay for a high end fab run of unsold parts. Intel likely has enough GPU IP to do something... however I have to say I was shocked they didn't buy Imagine last year. Having said that the Chinese holding company that bought them may still slice and dice them and Intel could end up with the IP they may be looking for a lot cheaper.

Intel may have been wise to not jump into the GPU game a few years back... the mining crazy is likely going to be killed by mining ASICs. NV and AMD both spent the bulk of their GPU R&D budgets there, and may not recoup that if ARM+ASIC cores start invading the server space and custom mining ASICs start moving in numbers.
 
jardows said:
Intel is not "innovative" as in, they take the conservative route. Introducing a new, competitive gaming GPU is going to require bold, outside of the box action that Intel is not used to. Also, their track record of breaking into new market segments isn't exactly stellar. While I hope they can eat away at NVIDIA, I fear they are more poised to take shares more away from AMD and further entrench NVIDIA's market dominance.
Click to expand...
Do keep in mind that they recently fired about 1,000 GPU engineers, and now are hiring another 1200 IIRC. Things might be a changin'.
 
R&D for a new gpu takes over a 100s of millions. Its not easy.
Think Nvidia spends around 2 or 3 years working on a new gpu.

Sure a new company can try, but may take them years to catch up. You just need a ton of money.
 
Galvin said:
R&D for a new gpu takes over a 100s of millions. Its not easy.
Think Nvidia spends around 2 or 3 years working on a new gpu.

Sure a new company can try, but may take them years to catch up. You just need a ton of money.
Click to expand...

Intel has a ton of money and needs a new area of growth now that their CPU's are not the Infallable Money Printing machine they once were.
 
jwcalla said:
You don't have to put out a competitive product to win the market.
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True. They do hold the lion share of the video card market. Well, where video cards are being used as video cards.

I guess I was thinking of the add-on market.

Dan_D said:
You might be surprised. Intel's got deep pockets and that's a big part of the battle. Unfortunately, they tried it before and it didn't go very well. That said, I never felt they tried that hard to be perfectly honest. The Intel 740 is the only discreet GPU they brought to market and it wasn't exactly well received. If they can get the right team together I think they can make a good product but only time will tell.
Click to expand...

You are correct, I would be very surprised. Deep pockets can buy talent, but Intel had deep pockets before when they tried to make it and failed miserably.

I do not think the corporate culture there is up to playing well in the discrete market, but we shall see. Maybe they learned from the last outing.
 
So Raja burned RTG to the ground, then joined Intel.


Fun times we live in.
 
grtitan said:
Sorry, kind of confused by this, INTEL fired 1k engs and then rehired 1200? Or another company fired them and Intel hired them?
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Its actually pretty old news. Back in Sept or so when Intel announced a new US fab they specifically said they wanted to expand their GPU business. They also pouched Raja Koduri from AMD their GPU Senior VP and chief architect. In a press release Murthy Renduchintala Intels chief engineer said , "We have exciting plans to aggressively expand our computing and graphics capabilities."

I think its possible Intel releases a GPU product before the US fab opens. They have been hiring GPU guys in the US, Singapore and other places since sept.
https://searchjobs.intel.com/jobs/?q=Graphics#4
 
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I'm almost willing to bet that Intel will put their usual twist on it and all initial offerings for the first year or two will be marketed towards power users and professionals...for an insane price.
 
KazeoHin said:
Interesting point.
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From the article

Where the plot thickens is when you look at the Koduri’s unwavering ambition. Koduri’s ultimate goal is to separate the Radeon Technologies Group from its corporate parent at all costs with the delusion that RTG will be more competitive with NVIDIA and become a possible acquisition target for Koduri and his band of mutineers to cash in when it's sold. While Koduri is known to have a strong desire to do this by forging a new relationship with Apple on custom parts (no surprise there) for Macbooks, the real focus is on trying to become the GPU technology supplier of choice to none other than Intel. While this was speculated some time ago I can tell you with certainty that a deal is in the works with Intel and Koduri and his team of marauders working overtime to get the deal pulled into port ASAP. The Polaris 10/11 launch, and all of its problems, are set to become a future problem of Intel’s in what RTG believes will be a lucrative agreement that will allow Koduri and his men to slash the lines from Lisa Su and the rest of AMD.

With Intel in the midst of a shake-up under their new chief product guy, Murthy Renduchintala, the consequences of this agreement with AMD and subsequently the Radeon Technologies Group are significant. In the midst of Intel’s most significant layoffs in recent memory, looking to be around 12,000 positions, it has let go a significant number of graphics engineers and related functions (I am told well over 1,000) in anticipation that Intel will hand over many of these functions to AMD. This is a hell of a bet for new executive "Murthy" Renduchintala while under fire to take on an unproven team with a track record of false starts and missed engineering milestones. Whether Murthy will come to his senses before it’s too late remains to be seen. This is not ATI circa 2006, when Murthy (formerly at Qualcomm) bought a talented group of engineers formerly of ATI’s Imageon business. Murthy must know something we don’t about this team and for Intel’s sake I hope he’s right, because to us, it seems to be a bad bet.
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AMD and Intel have been planning something behind the scenes for a while. Nvidia response could be GPP.
But Raja going to Intel was a inevitable and it seems like Intel wants RTG in some form apart their future plans.
 
variant said:
After he failed to get AMD to sell Radeon to Intel, he left and got a job at Intel. Not suspicious in the slightest.
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Raja's job seemed to be anything but make gpu's.
Thankfully AMD have been on top of major parts they've lagged behind on in technology regardless of raja.. now lets see them do what they do best with proper leadership!
 
Dan_D said:
You might be surprised. Intel's got deep pockets and that's a big part of the battle. Unfortunately, they tried it before and it didn't go very well. That said, I never felt they tried that hard to be perfectly honest. The Intel 740 is the only discreet GPU they brought to market and it wasn't exactly well received. If they can get the right team together I think they can make a good product but only time will tell.
Click to expand...
Few of the i752 Cards made it out, we built PCs for a couple of months back then with them in it... Its interesting looking back now and seeing comparison between AGP and PCI let alone i740 vs Riva 128.
http://www.infohq.com/VideoCards.htm#752
and
http://vintage3d.org/i740.php#sthash.zgbfE6tC.dpbs
 
I remember Intel's past attempts at discrete graphics cards: the Intel i740. I actually had one at one point, paired with a Voodoo 2. I replaced it with a used Permedia 2 card, and it was actually an improvement.

I am SO not impressed with anything Intel does with graphics. Their graphics have always been a disappointment.
 
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