Intel Xe Discrete Graphics based on 7nm - has HBM and carries codenamed Ponte Vecchio

I'm surprised they're going with hbm on this they must have high confidence that sales will make up for the extra cost or like past AMD cards it requires it due to another constraint

 

Smells like a high-price computing GPU...

 

No more. Something Lake?
Oh my...

 

Intel had enough with draining its swamps.

Punchline explanation below:

Spoiler

draining its swamps = fixing security holes in lakes CPU series (with a bit of political spice!)

 

It's not surprising at all as long as it's only the professional, server/super computer aimed product. That's where Nvidia used HBM as well. It's only AMD that decided to use it in consumer parts, and it didn't really help them against the competition. But then again, AMD was an HBM developer, so it makes some sense they were (too) eager to use it.

 

Lakes were for CPUs. But, also do not forget, before CPUs were Lakes, they were also Bridges (Sandy Bridge, Ivy Bridge)

 

Well if you are going to jump in to the gpu market it makes sense to come in with something different to attract attention. Intel netted 21 billion U.S. dollars last year. They can afford to produce a more expensive gpu and offer it with competitive pricing. More processing power at less power usage could be an attractive incentive to go Intel. Following the typical drug dealer and Nvidia game plan of offering a better product at cheaper price in the beginning, then once hooked on the product suddenly charge three times the price for their product. I welcome Intel bringing in a different package. Competition is always good for the consumer.

 

7nm + HBM as something different?

AMD had this already last year...

 

A split between HBM and GDDR would make sense and if intel purchase a lot of HBM the price would go down of course. We will see.

It is too far away at the moment to be critical, I am just glad more competition in the market place. I have written off Matrix ever coming back recently ... ( joke ).

In the past even Western Digital made video chips. The very good Paradise 90C33, with it's parrot emblem for instance.

 

2080ti killer for $299 in coming I tell ya!.........

we can only wish at this point...

 

It isn't going to be as expensive for them if they make it themselves. Besides, you typically have to take some pretty heavy losses/debts in order for a product to succeed. Tesla (which the picture in the article reminded me of) is a good example - that brand wouldn't have been as popular as it is if it weren't for the REALLY long-term ROI.
The thing about Intel is they rake in more billions of dollars in net revenue per year than they know what to do with. They could give out the first 10,000 Xe GPUs for free and they're still going to return a hefty profit. Right now, Intel's top priority should be to get Xe popular and to shake people's impression that Intel sucks at making GPUs. If Intel or its investors are expecting first-gen Xe to have a substantial profit margin, then Xe will surely fail.

Even if it were 2080 performance for $300, that'd be amazing and something I'd heavily consider.

 

So much truth to this in the business world^...a bit OT but we had a nice restaurant buffet that charged $11.99 all you can eat!....then a new restaurant open that only charge $7.99...
The first said restaurant shut down because it could not compete with $7.99 price...
I'll give you one guess what the second restaurant charges now?

 

But how fast will it be after all security patches have been applied?

 

That sounds like a joke, but it's a real concern. Xe is based on the same iGPU that's in their CPUs, which means it's a massive potential attack vector should a vuln be found.

As for it being cheap, c'mon - this is Intel. If it is as fast as competitor card "X" the price will be 10-20% higher than that competing card, and they will bribe/threaten/coerce AIBs to not sell the competitors if they want to make Xe cards. Their corporate strategy has always been "our stuff is the best, sells at a premium, and nobody should use anything else", no reason to believe this will be different.

 

I knew it, Raja didnt leave Amd , his task is to lead Intel down the road of no success by brain washing Intel, that making a HBM vga card is a sales killer.

Well done Raja , you cheeky saboteur

 

It will be as cheap as it needs to be to move a ton of product. Like AMD CPU's Intel's GPU's will need to get market share to build confidence so I can seem them offering at lowest prices to move as much as they can. Realistically if the performance is there they won't be undercutting AMD and Nvidia by large margins, say 15-20% and this is just for the first generation.

 

If its professional GPU's only then realistically HBM is the only choice if you want to compete with Nvidia which also uses HBM in some of their highest end profesional cards.

 

This is most likely a server / computing product, as many people had speculated before. No sense in creating an expensive consumer product that barely has any margins - it's far better to create a computing GPU that can be scaled down for consumers. At any rate, I don't expect any miracles here (consumer XE will probably be far less powerful than the 2080 Ti or will be just as expensive).

 

Only the future will tell, but "it will be cheap" in referring to anything Intel, doesn't make logical, historical sense.