If Intel will "listen and learn" the same way they did in regards to their processors, I expect a total disaster. But then again we DO need a 3rd major player on this market.

I hope this works out. More competition is good for consumers and drives the push to innovate.

Hopefully they will be very successful, the GPU market desperately needs a shakeup!

cryohellinc:

If Intel will "listen and learn" the same way they did in regards to their processors, I expect a total disaster. But then again we DO need a 3rd major player on this market.

was 3dfx the last one?

airbud7:

was 3dfx the last one?

There are some small ones such as Matrox, but that's why I wrote "major" manufacturers. And when it comes in specific to our mainstream consumer market, there are right now only 2 - Green and Red. Won't mind Blue to be added into the mix.

cryohellinc:

There are some small ones such as Matrox, but that's why I wrote "major" manufacturers. And when it comes in specific to our mainstream consumer market, there are right now only 2 - Green and Red. Won't mind Blue to be added into the mix.

agree....and Thanks!

The graphics market is finally going to become RGB 😀.

cryohellinc:

If Intel will "listen and learn" the same way they did in regards to their processors, I expect a total disaster. But then again we DO need a 3rd major player on this market.

I think Intel is going to be a much different company in the next 2-3 years. They basically got rid of everyone at the top. The new CEO increased capex spending by $15B and is basically taking the approach of "let the engineers do their thing". Speaking of engineers, they're purchasing all the top talent - whoever Jim Keller wants he's getting and it's the first time he's been in a management role like this. People dislike Raja for various reasons but what he did at AMD on a shoestring budget was nothing short of a miracle on both hardware and software front and now he's building this thing. Then they hired Ryan Shrout and a few other guys from over at PC Perspective in performance strategy roles and those guys interface directly with Keller and they're all nerd gamers. The products and decisions now have been in the pipeline for years but slowly I think we're going to start seeing a shift in the way Intel handles things. Even recently they seem to be way more open about their architectures, future plans, etc.

cryohellinc:

If Intel will "listen and learn" the same way they did in regards to their processors, I expect a total disaster. But then again we DO need a 3rd major player on this market.

They are making money, that's the priority of any successful company. Whether you like it or not - is not their concern. If you really think they made 5% jumps (in regards to CPU) every year because they can't do better, think again. They had 10+ core CPUs since ...forever. The only other reason why they didn't put out something like coffee lake earlier is because they had no reason to, thanks to you know who. PS. You can expect their GPUs, if they make them, will target some part of market and will be there to make more money, not you/me/anyone happy. Something AMD finally learned to do and it shows. I don't remember ever hearing anyone saying that tech industry should be a socialist, populist oriented project.

I dont think Intel will be able to compete with AMD and Nvidia how we would like.

Denial:

I think Intel is going to be a much different company in the next 2-3 years. They basically got rid of everyone at the top. The new CEO increased capex spending by $15B and is basically taking the approach of "let the engineers do their thing".

If that really happened or is happening, I might eventually stop my weekly Intel badmouthing. But until I see it with my own eyes, I won't be convinced. Intel is such a behemoth that it won't change overnight and old habits die hard (including CPU dies).

I'm still not convinced Intel is making a gaming GPU. This will probably just be used for pro applications, rendering, and compute. That being said, I actually look forward to the compute aspect. That's where the real shakeup will be. Intel can dump millions into OpenCL and Vulkan compute to combat CUDA. This will of course benefit AMD (and somewhat Nvidia too) but Intel could finally put an end CUDA's monopoly. AMD doesn't have the money or resources to do this, so I never expected it of them. I also hope Intel succeeds in this since that should keep Huang's annoying ego in check. And yeah I know, it reeks if irony to have Intel be responsible to end a monopoly.

Vananovion:

The graphics market is finally going to become RGB 😀.

Thanks for making me throw up, but I guess it's good for consumers; not the throwing up part, competition.

schmidtbag:

I'm still not convinced Intel is making a gaming GPU. This will probably just be used for pro applications, rendering, and compute. That being said, I actually look forward to the compute aspect. That's where the real shakeup will be. Intel can dump millions into OpenCL and Vulkan compute to combat CUDA. This will of course benefit AMD (and somewhat Nvidia too) but Intel could finally put an end CUDA's monopoly. AMD doesn't have the money or resources to do this, so I never expected it of them. I also hope Intel succeeds in this since that should keep Huang's annoying ego in check. And yeah I know, it reeks if irony to have Intel be responsible to end a monopoly.

The landing page for the odyssey announcement is at gameplay.intel.com which is all video games. Plus Raja has referenced gaming multiple times on twitter in reference to what he's working on. There is no way this thing isn't in some form a gaming GPU.

Denial:

I think Intel is going to be a much different company in the next 2-3 years. They basically got rid of everyone at the top. The new CEO increased capex spending by $15B and is basically taking the approach of "let the engineers do their thing". Speaking of engineers, they're purchasing all the top talent - whoever Jim Keller wants he's getting and it's the first time he's been in a management role like this. People dislike Raja for various reasons but what he did at AMD on a shoestring budget was nothing short of a miracle on both hardware and software front and now he's building this thing. Then they hired Ryan Shrout and a few other guys from over at PC Perspective in performance strategy roles and those guys interface directly with Keller and they're all nerd gamers. The products and decisions now have been in the pipeline for years but slowly I think we're going to start seeing a shift in the way Intel handles things. Even recently they seem to be way more open about their architectures, future plans, etc.

There is that tiny issue. Koduri had nothing to do with Original GCN development. His involvement was pretty mediocre one from my point of view. Take it this way. 1st GCN card had 32CUs and had 1050MHz. GCN started with 64CU limit. All GCN did in time he was in control was that it reached that 64CU limit with Fury X, Vega 64, Radeon 7. Limit has not been worked out, therefore no more ROPs and TMUs. Clock moved from 1050MHz on 28nm to ~1500MHz on 14nm. And it was more due to manufacturing process improvements than anything else as can be seen on Polaris which started around 1250MHz and finishing at around ~1600MHz. Under his lead GCN did pack in core compute capability in terms of being able to execute twice as much FP16 than FP32, added accelerated INT4/8. But downclock Vega 64 to Fury X (Same core configuration, 2 generations older GCN architecture) clock and they perform same in games. Take R9-285/380 and compare it to HD 7950 (Same core configuration, 2 generations older GCN architecture) with same clock and you are not getting gaming upgrade. Radeon 7 downclocked against Fury? Hell, you can take HD 7970 and compare it to RX-570 (downclocked to match it) as it has again same GPU configuration. You would be surprised how small difference there is clock-to-clock. His teams while he was in charge added some native support for newer DX functionality. But did it improve performance? Answer is in comparisons above.

Denial:

The landing page for the odyssey announcement is at gameplay.intel.com which is all video games. Plus Raja has referenced gaming multiple times on twitter in reference to what he's working on. There is no way this thing isn't in some form a gaming GPU.

Well, I stand corrected then. For what it's worth, I'm never on Twitter, let alone knew Raja used it to announce things like this.

I don't have any confidence in this product, specifically because from what i recall reading/hearing, they are pretty much just blowing up their iGPU to make a dedicated GPU. I don't have any confidence in their iGPUs, so why should i have confidence in their dedicated GPU built from the same nonsense? Intel could prove me wrong, but i doubt it, i expect it'll be a few years after their first mainstream GPU, if they overhaul the architecture, before they become relevant, unless they play the price game, which....their track record shows they won't do.

Odyssey suggests it is a loooong haul project. Translated, this means, "We won't have anything good for a very long time. Consider yourself warned". I fully expect integrated replacements from them and nothing more. Low performing GPU's with an Intel sticker on them to keep the whole PC Intel branded. That's it.

Aura89:

I don't have any confidence in this product, specifically because from what i recall reading/hearing, they are pretty much just blowing up their iGPU to make a dedicated GPU. I don't have any confidence in their iGPUs, so why should i have confidence in their dedicated GPU built from the same nonsense? Intel could prove me wrong, but i doubt it, i expect it'll be a few years after their first mainstream GPU, if they overhaul the architecture, before they become relevant, unless they play the price game, which....their track record shows they won't do.

Their iGPUs are for free with most of their CPUs. There is nothing to compalin about when it's free, or so I thought. I remember not having iGPU and my discrete GPU dying. So atm, I'd rather have a PC that works but not gaming capable, then have no PC at all (AMD solution)

I have no idea what market they are targeting (low end only? full range?) but I feel like they need a "halo", beast of a card to get people interested in their brand (for video cards) at all. Knock it out of the park or what would compel people to even bother switching from the tried and true GPU makers? Intel at the very least needs something that can compete with mid-range cards. Either that or undercut the competition price wise pretty dramatically. Or perhaps the lower end GPU market is far more lucrative than I'd imagined and that's all they need to grow the brand.