Intel finally releasing discrete GPU

[Cmaier]

Intel Arc laptop GPUs are only available in South Korea for now

I find this disappointing, I was curious to see how it measures up against AMD and Nvidia

I find this fun. I recall many times while at AMD where we couldn’t convince OEMs to sell products with our parts in them, due to Intel’s anti-competitive practices. Let Intel squirm a bit.

 

[diamond.g]

Intel Arc laptop GPUs are only available in South Korea for now

I find this disappointing, I was curious to see how it measures up against AMD and Nvidia

For the reported TDP it isn't that bad. Apparently the drivers are still trash though.

Intel Arc A350M GPU has finally been tested, slower than GTX 1650, up to 2.2 GHz clock - VideoCardz.com

Intel Arc A350M tested on Samsung Galaxy Book2 Pro As we have reported earlier today, Intel Arc A-Series of mobile GPUs are currently exclusively available for the South Korean market. This is where one may find Samsung Galaxy Book2 Pro laptop optionally outfitted with Arc A350M graphics. As it...

videocardz.com

 

[Renzatic]

Commenters say this is good

It's not terrible. They're both entry level cards, with the Arc being within spitting distance of matching the 1650. If the Arc is the less expensive option, I could see it being a compelling purchase.

 

[Cmaier]

It's not terrible. They're both entry level cards, with the Arc being within spitting distance of matching the 1650. If the Arc is the less expensive option, I could see it being a compelling purchase.

I guess i wonder what the market is. If you are not happy with integrated graphics, but don’t need TOO much more performance?

 

[Renzatic]

I guess i wonder what the market is. If you are not happy with integrated graphics, but don’t need TOO much more performance?

You've pretty much nailed it. Do you want a machine with a good bit more oomph than what you get from an integrated GPU, but don't want to have to deal with an overheating laptop sporting fans that sound like a jet engine spinning up? If so, Intel Arc might be just for you!

 

[Cmaier]

You've pretty much nailed it. Do you want a machine with a good bit more oomph than what you get from an integrated GPU, but don't want to have to deal with an overheating laptop sporting fans that sound like a jet engine spinning up? If so, Intel Arc might be just for you!

I figure most people willing to live with arc performance could probably save a few bucks and live with integrated graphics performance. I dunno. I guess I’m not the market for this.

 

[Renzatic]

I figure most people willing to live with arc performance could probably save a few bucks and live with integrated graphics performance. I dunno. I guess I’m not the market for this.

It's a good card for people who want to play games, do some 3D work, or some light to moderate video editing on the cheap. I'd say it's aimed roughly at the same market as the 13" MBP.

 

[JayAgostino]

Intel’s first Arc GPUs are launching today for laptops

More powerful Arc GPUs will arrive this summer.

www.theverge.com

This is very very late in the game, and is something that Intel has been working on for a very long time. Finally releasing these now is thinking small. Yeah, Intel will likely make enough money on this to recoup the 15 years of R&D that they’ve put into it, but this is not very forward-looking. What Intel should have learned from apple is that the future is likely to be integrated CPU/GPU packages, probably with a unified memory architecture. Discrete GPUs are already somewhat niche, and that’s going to be even more the case in 5 years.

The Intel Arc A750 is being hammered by media outlets.

Intel is setting expectations low for its Arc GPUs

Intel says its Arc A750 performs slightly better than the RTX 3060.

www.theverge.com

 

[Jimmyjames]

The only thing I can add to this discussion is the opinion of someone who was a Distinguished Architect at Nvidia for nearly two decades, and has now moved to be Director of GPU Architecture at Apple.

https://www.Twitter or X not allowed/i/web/status/1538341810887532544/
https://www.Twitter or X not allowed/i/web/status/1538362629818703872/

 

[Colstan]

While definitely a niche product, one area where I think Intel has done some quality engineering is with their NUC enthusiast products. They're basically high-end laptops without the screen, and are Intel's answer to the Mac mini. The last version, marketed as NUC11PHKi7C, is better known under its code name, Phantom Canyon. (There were complaints about the M1 Pro/Max/Ultra names being confusing, yet somehow Intel product names are okay.) The last version had a 4C/8T Tiger Lake CPU with an Nvidia mobile RTX 2060. You can replace the RAM and SSD, but not much else. So, it's similar to the Intel generation of Mac mini. Here's Phantom Canyon:

Other than the silly glowing skull gimmick, I think it's a respectable piece of engineering, and Intel was able to keep it surprisingly quiet. It's not a mass-market device, but wasn't meant to be. With similar specs, it also happens to be twice the price of the M1 Mac mini, $700 vs. $1,400, without an operating system. Still, if you want a small, quiet PC that can play Windows games, it probably fits in with the "enthusiast" crowd that it was marketed toward.

It must be financially successful, because Intel has been making versions of it for years. The bizzaro world Hades Canyon, which was released in 2018 when hell froze over, was co-designed with AMD, featuring an 8th gen Intel CPU paired with a custom AMD Vega mobile GPU.

Now, Intel has been working on the latest version, namely Serpent Canyon, and the leaked specs look much improved compared to its predecessor. The CPU is a Core i7-12700H 6P/8E Cores, 20 Threads, 4.7Ghz, with 24MB cache. That's a nice improvement over the Tiger Lake CPU in the previous model.

However, Intel is dumping Nvidia in favor of it's own graphics, namely an Arc A770M GPU with full ACM-G10 processor with 32 Xe-Cores and a total of 16GB GDDR6 memory. Since this is a small form factor, they aren't competing with desktop cards, but there are a lot of questions surrounding drivers. I'm sure Intel would prefer to push its own solution, but if the drivers aren't ready, then they could significantly impact this product.

I would note that they increased case the size, and therefore cooling, in Serpent Canyon:

Personally, I think it looks better when laid horizontally:

Regardless, you can see that Intel had to increase case volume, but at least you get full-size DisplayPort connectors, instead of mini-DP. Originally, Serpent Canyon was supposed to launch in Q2 of this year, along with the majority of the Arc dGPU line, but it's been pushed back until about Q4, with Q1 of 2023 being more likely for general availability.

No word on pricing, but it's probably going to be in the same $1,500 range as its predecessor, which is again, twice the price of the Mac mini. That being said, there are a number of competitors in the small desktop computer form factor space, and almost all of them suck. The performance is typically crap and the fan noise is unbearable. Thus far, Intel's engineers have done a good job of keeping these enthusiast NUC devices quiet, which considering they've got a high-end laptop CPU and dGPU inside, is an achievement.

As someone is currently using a 2018 Intel Mac mini, my fourth mini since I switched to Mac in 2005, I want to see more competition in this space. I plan on replacing my 2018 mini with an M3 generation Mac, most likely either another Mac mini with an M3 Pro, if such a device ever gets released, or a Mac Studio with an M3 Max. While I'd never give up my Mac for an x86 Windows machine, I'd consider getting one of these for PC games on the side. It would be reasonably easy to share peripherals between the two and neither would take up much desk space. If Apple's push with Metal 3 for Mac gaming is successful, then I won't have to consider the NUC, but it's always good to have options.

However, Intel is having a difficult time getting its act together with Arc. The problem seems to be with drivers, while AMD and Nvidia have many decades of experience, and of course Apple controls the entire stack. It would be a shame for Intel's enthusiast mini PC offering to be DOA because they pushed Arc into it too soon. On paper, it looks great, but it remains an enthusiast product. If those enthusiasts can't take advantage of the GPU because of shoddy drivers with first-gen silicon, then it could kill the entire product line.

I have to wonder, if by the time Intel gets its drivers sorted out, the PC chip guys will realize that Apple has the right of it and will move to a fully integrated SoC, thus rendering this concept obsolete. Sometimes it's fun to gawk at the PC guys and wonder what they were thinking, but I do want this product to succeed, because the Mac mini and Mac Studio could use the competition. However, Intel's GPU choices may kill the product before it even launches.

 

[exoticspice1]

Intel’s first Arc GPUs are launching today for laptops

More powerful Arc GPUs will arrive this summer.

www.theverge.com

This is very very late in the game, and is something that Intel has been working on for a very long time. Finally releasing these now is thinking small. Yeah, Intel will likely make enough money on this to recoup the 15 years of R&D that they’ve put into it, but this is not very forward-looking. What Intel should have learned from apple is that the future is likely to be integrated CPU/GPU packages, probably with a unified memory architecture. Discrete GPUs are already somewhat niche, and that’s going to be even more the case in 5 years.

Intel's 14th gen meteor lake and 15th gen arrow lake will have large iGPUs like M1 Max and M2 Max but they won't be unified memory

 

[exoticspice1]

The only thing I can add to this discussion is the opinion of someone who was a Distinguished Architect at Nvidia for nearly two decades, and has now moved to be Director of GPU Architecture at Apple.

https://www.Twitter or X not allowed/i/web/status/1538341810887532544/
https://www.Twitter or X not allowed/i/web/status/1538362629818703872/

Wtf this is a huge find!! You know it's funny with authors like Dylan Patel stating that Apple has a brain drain but Apple hiring Oliver is huge.

Oliver worked at Nvidia for 19 years, he knows his shit. Pardon the French. Apple GPUs IMO in the coming years will be fun to test.

 

[Huntn]

With graphic cards running $500-1000, I’ll be thrilled when integrated graphics can replace dedicated graphics and get the job done.

 

[diamond.g]

With graphic cards running $500-1000, I’ll be thrilled when integrated graphics can replace dedicated graphics and get the job done.

Is that a matter of how much of a rendering quality tradeoff you are willing to put up with?

 

[throAU]

So that didn’t take long… great success etc.

 

[Cmaier]

So that didn’t take long… great success etc.

Itanium (itanic), Arc,… Intel seems to pick names that can easily be modified into sinking boat memes.

 

[Yoused]

Intel seems to pick names that can easily be modified into sinking boat memes.

What about the great new Microsoft UI front end that was named for a drowning man?

("New" meaning new at the time, 30 years ago.)

 

[Cmaier]

What about the great new Microsoft UI front end that was named for a drowning man?

("New" meaning new at the time, 30 years ago.)

The one with no arms and no legs?

 

[throAU]

What about the great new Microsoft UI front end that was named for a drowning man?

("New" meaning new at the time, 30 years ago.)

I thought that was Cairo?

 

[Cmaier]

I thought that was Cairo?

I assume he meant Bob.