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Rivals Intel and AMD Team Up on PC Chips to Battle Nvidia
- habeebtc 9y agoSo, this might seem like strange bedfellows, but recall that AMD and Intel are both competitors and each other's customers. AMD licenses x86 from Intel, and Intel licenses x64 from AMD (because Itanium failed to win the 64 bit market).
- martin1975 9y agoGreat news. The only way we will see progress w/OpenGL, and eventually Vulkan, as well as Wayland and its litany of Wayland enabled compositors is with open source drivers. Intel and AMD seems to have seen the light of Linux. I wonder who's next - Microsoft perhaps ditching Windows for Linux and building a super GUI on top of Linux to make it an OS X killer?
- Lramseyer 9y agoThis is fantastic for AMD! Intel has the largest market share for GPUs with integrated graphics. While I haven't looked into it too much, it sounds like an opportunity for Intel's market share on top of what they already have. Let's just hope that Intel doesn't pull any legal tomfoolery and steal AMD's IP.
- sabujp 9y agoFirst of all, Intel and AMD are not rivals. The only reason AMD is alive is because Intel lets it live. Intel would pretty much become a monopoly in the server line if AMD were to disappear.
- Abishek_Muthian 9y agoSuperman carrying Kryptonite with him? P.S AMD K series were named after kryptonite as Intel's pentium series were considered to be superman.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- contingencies 9y agoNext new desktop / graphics card purchase (hell, throw in a VR headset/gun-style controller, an android horse[0] and a real Mongolian saddle[1]) = Mount & Blade: Bannerlord[2], IMHO set to be the best game in decades. No bandwidth for thought until then. :) [0] Played a cowboy game on one of these in a Shenzhen VR house, most fun I've had in years! Just don't look at the video of yourself playing afterwards! [1] Cheap realism. [2] https://www.taleworlds.com/en/Games/Bannerlord/ https://www.taleworlds.com/en/Games/Bannerlord/
- darklajid 9y agoI just got a G702ZC - basically a desktop Ryzen in a somewhat portable package. The keyboard is crap. It has a dedicated key for a 'Look! This is my current system load. You can even connect a mobile to see it on your phone!' ROG key where a numlock would be. It doesn't have a End key, which infuriates me. There's a power button in the top right of the keyboard which I WILL press in the future. It's just a failure about to happen. The keyboard is utterly flawed. Well.. I at least have a Ryzen 7 with 8 cores, right? Yeaaaaah... Right now the braindead EFI interface (you can switch between 'ez' (sic) and advanced mode) doesn't seem to expose a method to enable AMD-v. So ... Yeah. I have 8(16) cores to .. I don't know. Watch YouTube I guess. AMD and Asus really dropped the ball here. The keyboard is unacceptable. The AMD-v issue is .. low. So fucking low. Don't buy this laptop?
- unnawut 9y agoGenuinely curious. I wonder how a partnership between competitors like this usually starts off? Someone near the top (i.e. mamagement) of each company say "Hey, we are behind on this. Can we borrow it?". Or their staff talk and suggest it up? Or else? Does this happen all the time but few would only make it through? Or these discussions rarely happen?
- nailer 9y agoWhy doesn't NVIDIA build a CPU? They'd have to license x86 from Intel/AMD (since most Windows apps are built for x64) but AFAIK CPUs are far less complex (in sheer amount of transistors) than GPUs.
- dpark 9y agoFewer transistors doesn't mean less complex. If it were easy to build a CPU competitive with Intel, AMD would do it more consistently.
- pjmlp 9y agoThey do, ARM based ones.
- muxr 9y agoIt's important to note their ARM CPUs aren't anything to write home about. Mostly a slightly modified version of ARM's own reference designs.
- grogenaut 9y agoSo the way I understand it is gpus are really just a lot of really dumb CPUs and they toss out all but the simplest interlocking. So Nvidia gets to skip a lot of legacy complexity and focus on building chips that just have lots of copies of the same thing. The complexity is pushed downstream. Stuff also has to be rewritten for gpus. And this is for people chasing speed so they're more likely to rewrite. These people couldn't do what they wanted without this new tech. CPUs need to make legacy code up to 40 years old run faster so there is a ton of complexity in the hardware. They are chasing people who want modest speed bumps without large changes. Kinda like how apple was able to pull off a performant phone/tablet after Microsoft failed a bunch... Because they got people to rewrite apps (or create) for their platform instead of shoehorning windows apps into a different form factor. Much bloat was cut, usability was redone. It's an analogy so don't go silly over the differences.
- littlecranky67 9y agoBecause x86 is a patent minefield, AMD has a license but other companies would have to negotioate with Intel about those patents before they can do x86.
- nicktelford 9y agoI honestly can't see this going anywhere; Intel have no skin in the discrete graphics game, so what do they have to gain from this? They're not really competing with nVIDIA, except perhaps in the emerging AI hardware market?
- mtgx 9y agoIntel has already displaced Nvidia in most laptops because its integrated graphics got "good enough". Some OEMs continue to add low-end Nvidia graphics to Intel-based laptops, even though they have the same or less performance than Intel's graphics, simply because they don't want Intel to think they are their exclusive supplier and can raise prices at will. What this deal will do is allow Intel to become the de-facto leader in the growing "laptop gaming" market, displacing both Nvidia and AMD from that market. AMD had a chance to dominate that market now with multi-core Ryzen CPUs and its dedicated GPUs, but it seems they've just decided to hand that market over to Intel on a silver platter. Such a huge mistake from AMD. This is why I would rather AMD would be acquired by someone like Samsung or Broadcom to give AMD the money it needs than do stupid deals like this one with Intel because it's so strapped for cash.
- bitL 9y agoI guess AMD is betting on EPYC; desktop is not progressing much and they are non-existing on laptops either, possibly blocked by Intel on the vendor level, so it's better for them to get a few % of profit instead of none from this segment.
- lettergram 9y agoExactly my thoughts. I posted in a comment below (also responding to mtgx). Essentially, the laptop chips AMD can produce are still slightly better (well, cheaper) - it's just they can't get into the market for a few years until vendors are up again.
- paulmd 9y ago> Some OEMs continue to add low-end Nvidia graphics to Intel-based laptops, even though they have the same or less performance than Intel's graphics The only competitive part from Intel is Iris Pro 580 with the Crystal Well cache, and those parts are capital-E expensive.
- mtgx 9y agoThis will probably go down as AMD's biggest strategic mistake in the past decade (other than the Bulldozer architecture). Did they at least revise their licensing deal where Intel basically adds a requirement that AMD can't be sold to other companies? If not, then AMD's leadership must be clueless. They should've revised that clause the first chance they got to make another deal (like this one!) with Intel.
- jjawssd 9y agoAs a "strategic mistake" counter-argument: It is possible that AMD would go under without this deal.
- DoofusOfDeath 9y agoLeading AMD must be emotionally exhausting. Can you image leading a company that for so long is fighting for survival?
- manigandham 9y agoThis is basically every startup. Many of the quiet successes take decades.
- qeternity 9y agoThis is most businesses in general where healthy and creatively destructive competition takes place.
- krylon 9y agoGiven the entangled licensing situation, what would happen to Intel if AMD went bankrupt? Would they not lose their x86_64 license, unless they bought what remained of AMD? And if they did, would that raise some major antitrust issues?
- Macha 9y ago
- quickben 9y agoAnd the stock goes wild in exactly 10m on market opening.
- skinnymuch 9y agoAMD has a decent bump of being up over 6% so far today (markets open for 15 min). I was going to go in but read this news too late. Amd is too volatile and random to her short term they'll go up more than the current 6% bump.
- bitL 9y agoIntel + AMD should get together in offering a CUDA alternative/compatibility for Deep (Reinforcement) Learning/AI where NVidia is experiencing exponential growth for the past few years and they are simply non-existing there full of half-baked efforts.
- nl 9y agoAMD doesn't care about Deep Learning. This is a quote: "Are we afraid of our competitors? No, we're completely unafraid of our competitors," said Taylor. "For the most part, because—in the case of Nvidia—they don't appear to care that much about VR. And in the case of the dollars spent on R&D, they seem to be very happy doing stuff in the car industry, and long may that continue—good luck to them. We're spending our dollars in the areas we're focused on." "Car stuff" being self-driving cars, while "the areas we're focused on" is VR. From http://arstechnica.co.uk/gadgets/2016/04/amd-focusing-on-vr-mid-range-polaris/ http://arstechnica.co.uk/gadgets/2016/04/amd-focusing-on-vr-... AMD has made numerous press releases about supporting deep learning, sometimes via OpenCL, sometimes via cross compiling CUDA or sometimes something else. I used to get excited about it. Now, I have a rule: don't get excited about AMD (or Intel, or any new hardware) until they are winning at training neural networks on an absolute speed basis. (Note: vendors will frequently release benchmarks showing how they beat Nvidia. Almost inevitably these are for inference, and often on a speed per watt or speed per dollar, or you can't actually buy the hardware.)
- microcolonel 9y agoAMD and Google IIRC are already working on a CUDA implementation for AMD GPUs.
- tombert 9y agoI'm not super familiar with the law in this area, but doesn't AMD+Intel teaming up get into antitrust territory? The x86 architecture still basically has a monopoly on the desktop, laptop, and server space. Could someone a bit more familiar in this area elaborate?
- muxr 9y agoIntel has paid Nvidia billions in the past to use Nvidia's tech at the expense of AMD.. https://newsroom.intel.com/news-releases/intel-announces-new-patent-cross-license-agreement-with-nvidia/ https://newsroom.intel.com/news-releases/intel-announces-new... Since both Nvidia and Intel are monopolies in their respective fields.. that was far more egregious towards AMD than this is towards Nvidia.
- convery 9y agoNot a lawyer, but: in theory; yes. However, we don't really deal with anti-trust issues anymore as any reasonable fine is pocket-change for these companies. Not to mention that if there's a legitimate threat they just fund a startup and point to it as independent competition that will go bankrupt the second people stops talking about the anti-trust.
- simion314 9y agoI think this would be Intel+Radeon division and not the AMD CPUs, Intel would still compete with the AMD CPU division
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- ksec 9y agoThis is like, "Hell has frozen over" kind of news Am I the only one who smell this as very "Apple" wanted? I dont think AMD will be giving up any GFX secret, more likely this is AMD shipping Intel a Mobile Gfx Die to be integrated within the same CPU package. But in any case, Why not just have Intel ship a Mobile CPU without iGPU and a Separate GPU. And AMD, why now? When Zen is doing great, has great roadmap and potential, along with much better GFx then Intel. Why? Edit: OK, I didn't read carefully, while this is WSJ, it is still a rumor, nothing has confirmed.... yet. Edit2: It is confirmed now. Edit3: Yes AMD will be shipping die to Intel, and it is EMIB at work. https://www.pcworld.com/article/3235934/components-processors/intel-and-amd-ship-a-core-chip-with-radeon-graphics.html https://www.pcworld.com/article/3235934/components-processor...
- runeks 9y ago> And AMD, why now? When Zen is doing great, has great roadmap and potential, along with much better GFx then Intel. Why? Why not now? Why not generate additional income from the sale of these Intel/AMD CPUs instead of relying on just Zen? This way, AMD can make money both when a Zen and a Core CPU is sold.
- bitcoinmoney 9y agoNo. This is not. Source: I know someone who worked at AMD before and this is not a remote possibility. Employees have been talking about this possibility openly inside the company. Why? Simply because the GPU is a HW black box that anybody can use (including the competitors). At least that's how I understood it.
- philjohn 9y agoThis is actually a smart move for AMD, and here's why. These chips from Intel are going to be the super-high top end mobile chips in laptops that cost serious money, and have a rumoured 45w TDP. Raven Ridge on the other hand is a traditional AMD APU, albeit with a decent CPU component - it's not going after the same market segment at all, it's going after the segment where you want to maybe do some light e-sports gaming. This way, AMD gets both bites of the cherry - they get to sell their APUs with Zen, and they also get to target the super top end.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- floatboth 9y agoOh, so still not confirmed officially. Why would AMD agree to this? This would massively eat into Raven Ridge laptop sales.
- mmrezaie 9y agoProbably next Apple release cycle is the main motivation, but who knows?
- mtgx 9y agoI'm actually quite surprised Apple didn't go with Ryzen/Threadripper already in their Mac Pros, considering what a huge multi-thousand dollar margins that would have offered them (at least if they went with the same absurd prices as the Xeon Mac Pros). And they could've still claimed a significant boost for their Mac Pro performance compared to the old Intel chip in the last generation. They could've also replaced all of their dual-core laptops with quad-core Ryzen APUs for about 2-2.5x increase in both CPU multi-thread performance and GPU performance. And I don't think it would've cost them more, or not significantly more at least. AMD seems to price their cores at 50-60% of Intel's cores.
- mmrezaie 9y agoI would have liked to see that too but I assume one of the reasons can be porting the BIOS/UEFI and Chipset Drivers, and keep the quality the same as the one that they have already. AMD has done good on the hardware but they are not famous for being stable on the driver and software side.
- pault 9y agoIsn't thickness and therefore heat dissipation and power consumption paramount in Apple's laptop line? AMD struggles in all those areas as far as I know.
- mark-r 9y agoI thought Ryzen was finally catching up in those areas? They certainly seem to be competitive in the desktop space.
- dna_polymerase 9y agoAMD should focus on getting great support for their existing tech. If their current GPU lineup would be better supported by Tensorflow & the likes that would greatly increase their adoption. Also, more RAM per GPU guys. Memory is a big bottleneck for many models I use.
- dman 9y agoCheck out the Radeon ssg. Its a gpu with a directly addressable 2tb ssd built into the gpu.
- bryanlarsen 9y agoMuch better source: https://newsroom.intel.com/editorials/new-intel-core-processor-combine-high-performance-cpu-discrete-graphics-sleek-thin-devices/ https://newsroom.intel.com/editorials/new-intel-core-process... credit to trynumber9: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15635771 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15635771
- m3kw9 9y agoThis prove how dominant Nvidia is, Intel and AMD is literally shaking in their boots to even consider partnering up to attempt to defeat a common enemy
- sclangdon 9y agoIs Nvidia that dominant? I don't have any numbers, but I'd be surprised if they had more GFX cards installed than Intel. In the high-end market, sure, but that's not a very big part of the whole story. And as for game consoles, both Xbox One and PS4 uses an AMD. Only the Switch uses NVidia.
- throwaway2048 9y agothere is nobody paying $500+ for an intel GPU, or more like $5000+ in the pro market.
- friedman23 9y agoComparing dedicated graphics cards to integrated graphics and then claiming intel has more chips installed than Nvidia is asinine.
- addicted 9y agoMore likely it proves how financially weak AMD is.
- pklausler 9y ago"Literally"? Are you sure that's the right word here?
- andy_ppp 9y agoThis seems like a lose lose and a net negative for everyone. 1) AMD must be preventing Intel from in future building similar integrated GPUs using anything like AMDs patent portfolio in GFX. 2) Intel will be able to 100% push out any vendors from moving to Ryzen for presumably faster integrated graphics. 3) Nvidia doesn't have an x86 CPU and last time I looked - all PCs and Mac laptops were using x86. As some have speculated maybe this is Apple telling their suppliers to jump and Intel and AMD said how high... I'm going to be interested to see if we ever get a jump to Apple using ARM and internally designed GPUs, I have a feeling that Jonny Ive must be wetting himself over making a reasonably powerful laptop that thin.
- walshemj 9y agoDepends for some massively parallel applications workstations etch threadripper has the edge on price performancem even more so if they bring out ThreadRipper 2 next year and replace the two dummy cores
- saas_co_de 9y agoNo, I think it is win-win. 1) AMD can sell chips in high end systems where it can't compete with Intel on CPUs or Nvidia on GPUs. 2) Intel can ship a high end graphics experience without dGPU which gets them a level of graphics in a form factor they couldn't otherwise achieve. 3) Ryzen is a low/mid range chip. Even if it could match Intel's performance it could never match Intel's brand, and Intel doesn't want to match AMDs price so they will stay in different market segments. Ryzen sales will not be hurt. 4) AMD gets valuable brand recognition by getting Radeon into more premium devices which could actually boost sales for cheaper Ryzen/Radeon devices down the line. 5) Shafts Nvidia which is a win for both sides. 6) Opens lines of communication for possible future merger or fab deal, which is not so much an issue from an anti-trust standpoint when you look at the total competitive landscape of ARM, Nvidia, Apple, Qualcomm, etc and the shrinking relevance of x86 in the big picture.
- robert_foss 9y ago1) Intel does not ship GPUs on high-end CPUs.
- neurotech1 9y agoNon-Paywall link http://archive.is/X3vJN http://archive.is/X3vJN
- cjensen 9y agoWorth noting: Skylake and Kaby Lake have been horror shows for Intel Integrated GPUs driver crashes. To add to this, some paths (like DXVA) are actually slower than Haswell. I wonder how much of this is a fix for GPU reliability rather than GPU performance.
- craftyguy 9y ago> Skylake and Kaby Lake have been horror shows for Intel Integrated GPUs driver crashes My experience with Intel iGPUs on skylake and kaby lake is quite different. They work very well on Linux.
- cjensen 9y agoI guess I should have clarified: Win7
- minikites 9y agoSkylake and Kaby Lake aren't supported by Windows 7: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/03/microsoft-is-getting-ready-to-block-windows-updates-for-old-windows-on-new-chips/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/03/micro...
- cjensen 9y agoSkylake is supported, as mentioned in the article you linked to. Kaby Lake's GPU is not a change from Skylake, so I expect the same problems, just in Win10 instead of 7.
- minikites 9y ago>only security fixes for Skylake systems running Windows 7 and 8.1 I don't think a security fix is going to address your GPU issues. You should update to a supported operating system.
- grogenaut 9y agoAny chance this is try before you buy for Intel?
- Strom 9y agoClose to zero chance of Intel being allowed to buy AMD, unless they open up x86 for others. Although if alternative architectures like ARM start gaining some actual ground on desktops/laptops, say in 20 years, then it might not trigger anti-monopoly bells as hard. Then there's the option of Intel buying just the Radeon parts of the company. However seeing as the GPU market seems to be growing fast, it would have to be quite the offer for shareholders to agree.
- maaark 9y agoThey might be allowed to buy Radeon Technologies Group, though.
- shmerl 9y agoIs this really going to be Intel with AMD GPU, or Intel simply paying to AMD for patents instead of Nvidia, while still making their own GPU? Somehow I doubt, AMD want to give away their APU competitive advantage to Intel.
- mastax 9y agohttps://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/11/intel-will-ship-processors-with-integrated-amd-graphics-and-memory https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/11/intel-will-ship-proc... AMD GPU Die + Intel CPU die on one package.
- shmerl 9y agoInteresting. Given it's Intel and AMD, I hope it will work seamlessly on Linux, unlike the Optimus horror.
- johnvega 9y agoFor those who are excited about AR/VR Mixed Reality headsets that Microsoft recently released, I think being able to use them with more laptops or maybe even thin and light laptops will be a great option. If you haven't tried the floating 2D desktop inside a 3D VR of the computer you're using is an interesting experience.
- nerpderp83 9y agoOk, I haven't read the article, on mobile... But Intel and AMD shouldn't be aligning on anything. This sounds extremely anti-competstive. Nvidia should get an automatic x86 license. Actually, I have a proactive anti monopoly idea. Any company that is the predominant player in a market cannot use patents to limit the ability of a competitor to make a compatible product. This would mean anyone could make x86 chips w/o a license.
- ac29 9y agoThere are rumours and speculation about this, but my reading into it is that this is going to be a single SKU (maybe 2 or 3 variants), possibly for a single customer. My best guess is Apple -- they were already using Intel CPUs with AMD GPUs, and they probably opened up their checkbook to make this collaboration happen. It should give them performance and power benefits, and Intel and AMD sell the same number of CPUs and GPUs, respectively, as before. Not sure why you think this is so anti-competitive. Who knows if NVIDIA was offered the same deal and declined? They are much less prone to making "semi-custom" parts for third parties, while AMD already has a track record of doing this for Sony with the PS4 and Microsoft for the Xbox One.
- jrs95 9y agoGiven that gaming was specifically mentioned, I'm assuming it probably isn't Apple. It's probably for products more similar to the Razer Blade Stealth. The concept of something like that is cool, but the integrated graphics are definitely the bottleneck.
- adamson 9y agoI doubt gaming is really their endgame here, there are many reasons to want integrated GPU and CPU on the same die beyond gaming that would be relevant to Apple for desktop and mobile (integrated pipelining, higher memory bandwidth)
- muxr 9y agoThe reason why Intel has iGPUs in their CPUs in the first place is a result of Intel licensing Nvidia tech. So you're telling me after Intel has paid Nvidia billions to use their tech, now it should be illegal for AMD to get in bed with Intel? Source: https://newsroom.intel.com/news-releases/intel-announces-new-patent-cross-license-agreement-with-nvidia/ https://newsroom.intel.com/news-releases/intel-announces-new... Good luck with that argument.
- itissid 9y agoSome thoughts from anandtech: "The agreement between AMD and Intel is that Intel is buying chips from AMD, and AMD is providing a driver support package like they do with consoles. There is no cross-licensing of IP going on: Intel likely provided AMD with the IP to make the EMIB chipset connections for the graphics but that IP is only valid in the designs that AMD is selling to Intel"[1] [1]https://www.anandtech.com/show/12003/intel-to-create-new-8th-generation-cpus-with-amd-radeon-graphics-with-hbm2-using-emib#comments https://www.anandtech.com/show/12003/intel-to-create-new-8th...
- mozumder 9y agoIf EMIB is that valuable, then they should expand it to main system memory as well as NVMe flash/XPoint storage.
- itissid 9y agoEMIB requires that all components can fit on a die that can be connected to the other components like the CPU using an embedded channel through the substrate. Expansion of the substrate to accommodate other components is not without costs.
- mozumder 9y agoFor laptop purposes, wouldn't Intel just stack 8 or 16GB of main memory DRAM, like they would HBM?
- itissid 9y agoUmm, probably, but NVMe is still connected via PCIe. The whole point of this deal is the EMIB connecting RAM and GPU. And its hard, EMIB connections is mostly to do with power dissipation and throughput. I am probably out of my depth guessing why companies are doing this with NVMe. Maybe its just that the market does not exist for it maybe its just the cost...