Intel Arc Xe2 "Battlemage" Discrete GPUs Made on TSMC 4 nm Process

[lexluthermiester]

Who cares where they fab it. Nvidia and Amd need competition really bad. We need to pay less for video cards.

Exactly! Who cares.

 

[Solidstate89]

If you can´t FAB it, buy it from elsewhere: INTel

What are you complaining about exactly?

 

[Jayn2]

info is from Intel VP, Walid Hafez, on June 18.

The Intel-3 node reached its manufacturing readiness milestone at the end of last year.
The Leixlip, Ireland fab is now producing high volume Intel-3.

 

[Vayra86]

It seems that at Intel they are really angry that people consider them incompetent the last few years, so they are jumping at the best TSMC nodes to prove that they are still building superior designs than the competition (AMD, ARM).
AMD should be careful to not end up third even before Intel starts fixing it's manufacturing problems. Lunar Lake, Battlemage, AMD could be in trouble in a year from now in laptops and GPUs.
And considering that mobile CPUs and GPUs are the ingredients for a console APU, I wonder if Intel is trying to build the hardware foundations here to go after SONY's and MS's next consoles. And while SONY might be a difficult target, MS is in bed with Intel for decades and it needs to differentiate itself from SONY to even have a chance with it's next console. When hardware is similar, like both using AMD's APUs, SONY wins easily.

Of course Intel is chasing that console money. They're clearly positioning for it and its the only way they won't have to compete with Nvidia, which they can't win anytime soon.

Who cares where they fab it. Nvidia and Amd need competition really bad. We need to pay less for video cards.

Well the node used is one of the biggest parts of a chip's cost. Use something not the latest and stuff gets a LOT cheaper.

I mean you saw what happened with Ampere, built on a last gen Samsung node. It was real cheap for Nvidia. If there was actual competition, we might have seen some of that too, but alas.

 

[john_]

Of course Intel is chasing that console money. They're clearly positioning for it and its the only way they won't have to compete with Nvidia, which they can't win anytime soon.

Maybe it's not just the money but the opportunity to have a number of games optimized for Intel hardware while being developed. AMD got that "bad drivers" reputation because game developers where developing on Intel+Nvidia hardware, so games where running unoptimized or badly on AMD GPUs when released. That changed after AMD won consoles. The reputation remained, but drivers where much better the last 10 years. Intel is facing the same danger with ARC here and they would love to fix this before it becomes a reputation. Avoid more Starfield fiascos.

 

[Minus Infinity]

Yes, but AMD isn't going to be releasing 3nm consumer grade gpu's anytime soon
I also doubt nvidia will do more than a mostly paper launch of a 5090 if that is going to be on n3?

Blackwell is on N4(P) not N3. They will not waste N3 capacity for non data-centre AI centric cards. N4P also costs a lot less, so unless you really want $3K 5090 I say Nividia woke up by choosing bleeding edge node this time round, unlike for Lovelace.

I don't care where Intel gets something fabbed, or on what node, all Icare about is more competition and a competitive product from a third player in the gpu segment. Battlemage that could offer 4070 Ti+ raster and RT, good AI performance and say $500 would get my money.

 

[Saabjock]

Intel will need to do better for less initially, simply to siphon new customers away from the other two GPU giants.
They cannot have another release like the first one. It'll need to be almost perfect out-of-the-box.
The sad reality....they cannot release RTX4070Ti performance and request RTX4070Ti money...not right away anyway.
They'll need to erase the bad taste of ARC for many.
That is just the reality and it was ARC's release...specifically ARC driver release which caused the negative perception.
I've had overall, a very pleasant experience with that card.

 

[kapone32]

Intel restarted the whole discrete GPU development because of servers indeed. This is also an argument I am using the past 1+ years that others say that Intel will abandon GPUs because of ARC's failure. Intel needs GPUs. For both servers and the consumer market. An Intel without GPUs is vulnerable ALSO in the consumer market.
That being said consoles is an important market not just for income, but also for promoting techs. Games developed on consoles will support the hardware of those consoles and considering the modern consoles are PCs, that means that PC ports will be coming with all Intel techs integrated from day 1, if those consoles are running Intel hardware.
Microsoft is with Qualcomm now because it wants to secure that IF ARM prevails Windows will remain the OS of choice. But it is with Intel for over 25 years. The Surface line using Intel chips and not AMD is a proof of that. MS waiting for Intel Lunar Lake to come out before offering AI features to x86 CPUs is also one more. Don't think that MS is delaying AI features on AMD's new CPUs just for Qualcomm's sake. In the x86 market MS was always supporting Intel first, AMD (much) later. And IF ARM doesn't prevail, MS will remain in bed with Intel. IF ARM grabs enough market share but x86 remains a 50%+ option, MS will have a trio with Qualcomm and Intel in bed. No one writes off Intel.

Too bad they listed the laptops at $2000 and the reviews showed the truth, only a fan boy would spend more money to buy ARM. The issue is that Spy vs Spy is only 2. There is no room for Qualcomm in PC mindshare.

 

[john_]

Too bad they listed the laptops at $2000 and the reviews showed the truth, only a fan boy would spend more money to buy ARM. The issue is that Spy vs Spy is only 2. There is no room for Qualcomm in PC mindshare.

Many will buy Qualcomm because the sales person or their friend said to them
- Qualcomm chips are powerful. They are like Apple's chips, they use the same architecture. This laptop it's like a Mac that runs Windows.
- Comes with great battery life. Twice as much as the next $2000 PC.
- It's the future. It's an AI PC. The others are obsolete.

and maybe a dozen more excuses to promote Qualcomm. Also something that Linus showed and I guess other reviews also pointed out, is the quality of the cameras on Qualcomm laptops. While this looks like a stupid reason, buying a $2000 laptop for a $10 equipment on it, people who are on video calling/meeting all the time might buy a Qualcomm laptop just for that reason alone.

Mindshare will come latter with OEMs and MS pushing Qualcomm. As with Intel's ARC, the first generation is problematic, the second might end up as game changing. And of course we expect cheaper ARM based laptops from Qualcomm and Mediatek. And IF we see Nvidia getting in the game in 2-3-5 years, things will heat up even more.

Intel is facing a mountain of problems, Nvidia is facing a (convenient) delay in it's latest AI chip and AMD's share price is dropping like a rock. Why? I believe it's because of ARM in Windows.

 

[kapone32]

Intel is facing a mountain of problems, Nvidia is facing a (convenient) delay in it's latest AI chip and AMD's share price is dropping like a rock. Why? I believe it's because of ARM in Windows.

There are a lot of people purporting different theories without looking at the root. Intel stock nosedived 27% in 1 day. That triggered a sell off, even Bitcoin dropped to as low as $72000 CAD in the same time frame from $96000. People are adjusting their portfolios to make up for the short fall. Some people are treating it like the end of the world. I don't think it is Qualcomm though. We have had ARM based laptops before and the price was too high and performance too meh for what it was. Who cares about Battery life if your app does not work optimally. I guess if you want to play Candy Crush on a laptop it could work though.