News Intel GPUs - Battlemage rumoured cancelled (again)

[igor_kavinski]

To me, this is clear evidence of an internal debate happening.

Board: I think it's time to put this sad product out to pasture.

Raja: I will not let you people kill my baby!

Pat: Of course, no one's gonna kill your baby. It's your baby, after all. But maybe you should come to terms with the fact that the baby needs to sleep for a while.

Raja: If you force my baby to sleep, I WILL disown or kill my baby! No one decides the fate of my baby but me!

And now they are wondering, we should have never hired this guy. We lose him, we are left with a body without a head. We keep him, the body frickin' rots.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Maybe someone from Intel, told that idiot m without lid, "they are cancelling alch" and he understood "arc".

Also possible.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

With all of the delays, rumors, and general weirdness surrounding Intel's entry in to the dGPU market, who knows what's going to happen?

 

[igor_kavinski]

Intel could have easily done this the boring way. Work on it till it's done and then tell the world. But nooooo. Raja wouldn't have it. I mean, Apple is a public company too. You don't see them telling the world what they are working on next.

 

[mikk]

Before we begin, I will note that I have reached out to several high ranking sources within Intel and they have categorically denied these recent rumors. Arc discrete is definitely not cancelled *right now* and they have even gone as far as to call the rumors 'FUD'.

Cancelling Discrete Graphics Is Not An Option If Intel Wants To Be Part Of The Future

With another rumor about Intel killing off a large chunk of AXG being posted by a known leaker, I wanted to put my pen to the proverbial paper and render my stance in stone: calls for divesting AXG (Accelerated Computing Systems and Graphics) after barely one attempt and a mere $3.5 Billion in...

wccftech.com

• Intel insiders have told me in no uncertain words that *no* decision has been taken yet about the future of Arc discrete desktop graphics and they remain committed to the roadmap through 2024 at the very least.
  [*]Delays aside, *as of right now* Intel remains committed to bringing Battlemage to discrete desktop graphics. Barring any black swan event, you should see Battlemage in discrete desktop format by late 2023 or early 2024 depending on how fast the R&D goes.
  [*]The big, full-fat Battlemage actually cannot actually fit on any reasonable sized mobility platform - so is purely a desktop product.

Update: The Future of Intel Arc (Discrete Desktop Graphics)

This story is a short update and a follow up to my editorial posted yesterday. If you have not read that already, I would highly advise you start there. This is a summary update of the Arc discrete desktop situation based on my talks with several sources well-placed inside Intel. As always, I...

wccftech.com

 

[maddie]

Funny.

"I wanted to put my pen to the proverbial paper and render my stance in stone: calls for divesting AXG (Accelerated Computing Systems and Graphics) after barely one attempt and a mere $3.5 Billion in spend is (apologies for the informal language) the silliest thing I have heard in a while."

 

[KompuKare]

Funny.

"I wanted to put my pen to the proverbial paper and render my stance in stone: calls for divesting AXG (Accelerated Computing Systems and Graphics) after barely one attempt and a mere $3.5 Billion in spend is (apologies for the informal language) the silliest thing I have heard in a while."

That's pocket change for Intel!

 

[igor_kavinski]

Funny.

"I wanted to put my pen to the proverbial paper and render my stance in stone: calls for divesting AXG (Accelerated Computing Systems and Graphics) after barely one attempt and a mere $3.5 Billion in spend is (apologies for the informal language) the silliest thing I have heard in a while."

Hey! They have so much money, why didn't they offer me to test A770 for them? I could easily bug them with ARC bug reports from the comfort of my office/home! I would have only charged them $200 per hour. That's like not even an electron in their vast sea of dough.

 

[igor_kavinski]

By the way, could the next Xbox SKU pack an Intel GPU? Sony isn't likely to be swayed easily but Raja could influence the Xbox division with his promises of great performance for very little money.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

By the way, could the next Xbox SKU pack an Intel GPU?

Remember when they took a 10 billion dollar plus loss trying to penetrate the mobile market, then failed and laid off 12.000 employees? After blowing golden opportunities the decade before by selling XScale. And passing up a chance to power the iPhone. That's probably what trying to supplant AMD would be like this late in the game. They missed their window, and would have to play catch up. All to win a market with low margins? Unlikely.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Unlikely.

I wouldn't discount Raja's ambitious nature. He would try his best to get his name in the news any way he can. He's only lying low right now coz he doesn't want more egg on his face.

 

[Heartbreaker]

That's pocket change for Intel!

Also isn't that the cost over 5 years. So 700 Million/year is Not that big of a deal for Intel. Especially considering They still need to design the core architectures, and still need to design the drivers, and UI, so killing discrete GPUs probably wouldn't even save half of that. Maybe 200 Million.

200 million/year savings isn't make or break for Intel. It would be stupid to can it over that.

 

[Heartbreaker]

Digital Foundry does what it does best with XeSS: Digs into the details. Overall very close to DLSS but a couple if artifacts that need to be dealt with:

 

[Tup3x]

Digital Foundry does what it does best with XeSS: Digs into the details. Overall very close to DLSS but a couple if artifacts that need to be dealt with:

Not bad first try at all.

 

[NTMBK]

By the way, could the next Xbox SKU pack an Intel GPU? Sony isn't likely to be swayed easily but Raja could influence the Xbox division with his promises of great performance for very little money.

Meh, they would have to break backwards compatibility again, and make a complicated GPU emulation layer again. Not impossible, but it would be an uphill struggle for Intel. It probably depends on how well Intel does with its future silicon manufacturing process. If they can manufacture cheaper, more power efficient chips than TSMC in huge quantities, Intel might well win it. Otherwise I don't see why they would ditch AMD just for a different chip fabbed on the same TSMC process.

 

[igor_kavinski]

If they can manufacture cheaper, more power efficient chips than TSMC in huge quantities, Intel might well win it.

Yup. That's the big IF. Someday, even AMD could be baking their chips in IFS fabs. Up to Intel's execution and Pat's leadership. This is their real test.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Has anyone posted the Semiaccurate article about Intel's driver teams in Russia? It has a date of Sept. 2nd but I only read it today.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Remember when they took a 10 billion dollar plus loss trying to penetrate the mobile market, then failed and laid off 12.000 employees?

I didn't really let that register in my brain before. They really have disposable money, don't they??? Who got fired among the decision makers for that fiasco?

So ARC/Battlemage better start making some money before the magical 10 billion dollar loss mark. That's the threshold for Intel to panic and wet their collective undies

 

[NTMBK]

I didn't really let that register in my brain before. They really have disposable money, don't they??? Who got fired among the decision makers for that fiasco?

So ARC/Battlemage better start making some money before the magical 10 billion dollar loss mark. That's the threshold for Intel to panic and wet their collective undies

Oh yeah, they were losing around a billion dollars a quarter on that mess: https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/intel-lost-1bn-on-mobile-in-q3-14.2404051/ This is when Intel had "contra-revenue", meaning they subsidised Atom so hard that they were literally paying for customers to use it. It wasn't that their costs were higher than their revenue, they had negative revenue. Which is, like, fiscal antimatter.

 

[coercitiv]

Has anyone posted the Semiaccurate article about Intel's driver teams in Russia? It has a date of Sept. 2nd but I only read it today.

Somebody definitely commented on that, I remember reading a TL;DR on the forum.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Yeah. About Intel hiring driver writers from Russia/Ukraine.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Intel is nuts. I can get a 3060 laptop for less, more system RAM and more VRAM!



And just now, I found Lenovo for even cheaper!

 

[moinmoin]

View attachment 67605

Intel is nuts. I can get a 3060 laptop for less, more system RAM and more VRAM!

View attachment 67606

And just now, I found Lenovo for even cheaper!

View attachment 67607

Never had to look up the exchange rate of Emirati Dirhams before, so, uh... thanks?

 

[igor_kavinski]

Never had to look up the exchange rate of Emirati Dirhams before, so, uh... thanks?

Oh, it's easy. I usually just multiply dollar with 4 (Paypal charges me 3.84 per dollar) so you can divide by 4 to convert to dollar. Gives you a rough idea. I'm always happy when $500 amounts to something less than AED 2000 for me

Think of it another way: if you plan a vacation to Dubai or Ferrari World in Abu Dhabi, your dollars more than triple and you will feel rich and spoilt throwing your dollars around

 

[DrMrLordX]

Somebody definitely commented on that, I remember reading a TL;DR on the forum.

Okay thanks. I only read it recently but didn't want to repost it if it had already been discussed.