Intel Could License AMD Radeon iGPU Tech for Future Processors

[thesmokingman]

This is an IP licensing agreement - a lawsuit with Nvidia locked Intel into buying licensing rights for certain GPU properties until march next year. All this is is Intel licensing from AMD rather than Nvidia. No actual physical properties are changing hands.

That it is, but it's a lot deeper than that. If it was that simple, they'd just renew with Nvidia and be done. However, there's much more to the story which makes it a compelling story, like how Nvidia is becoming a serious competitor to Intel in emergent fields like automotive, deep learning, etc all fields where Intel is pushing towards.

 

[Camm]

That it is, but it's a lot deeper than that. If it was that simple, they'd just renew with Nvidia and be done. However, there's much more to the story which makes it a compelling story, like how Nvidia is becoming a serious competitor to Intel in emergent fields like automotive, deep learning, etc all fields where Intel is pushing towards.

This is true, hence why Intel is more comfortable handing over money to AMD, as its currently the weaker competitor.

 

[Fluffmeister]

Nvidia are a big threat now for sure, that... and AMD are just plain cheap, ask Microsoft and Sony.

 

[TheGuruStud]

Given the lack of comments, I don't think anyone is buying this. They're so not buying it that they're not commenting on how BS it is

 

[Captain_Tom]

For me at least it looks like Intel wants to buy AMD, anyone else?

That's an overly simplistic assumption considering the following points:

1) Intel has CLEARLY hit a wall when it comes to graphics performance. Broadwell was practically the last real performance increase. Everything since has been incredibly incremental with questionable efficiency increases.

This problem is compounded by the fact that the only way Intel has managed to ever compete with AMD's top APU's is by using massively more expensive tech (EDRAM, Expensive process nodes, etc).



2) AMD is at a minimum about to be able to compete with every segment of Intel's once again. Contrary to what Intel (Or AMD) fanboys will tell you - this is a BIG BIG deal. If AMD is even moderately competitive in the CPU space, they will have a massive advantage overall considering they have superior graphics. Apple would be theirs at a minimum.


Hence I am quite literally ascertaining that there could be a win-win scenario where AMD/Radeon stay as their own companies, but make a TON of money allowing Intel to pay them big royalties for some of their patents. Heck maybe there are some patents AMD would like access to.

 

[Camm]

Add on top Intel could never buy AMD due to Antitrust. The only one that might be able to get thru without being hammered into oblivion with antitrust would be Qualcomm. Even then, they would have an incredibly difficult time.

 

[nem..]

 

[Fluffmeister]

CPUs are becoming more dull by the day, might as well get into bed with the next door slut.

 

[Prima.Vera]

I think they are talking about licensing some GPGPU related technology that currently is exclusively owned by nVidia and AMD.

 

[EarthDog]

CPUs are becoming more dull by the day, might as well get into bed with the next door slut.

Disagree.

This is more like taking that slut next door and making her the long term girlfriend you have to show to your family and friends.

 

[renz496]

That's an overly simplistic assumption considering the following points:

1) Intel has CLEARLY hit a wall when it comes to graphics performance. Broadwell was practically the last real performance increase. Everything since has been incredibly incremental with questionable efficiency increases.

This problem is compounded by the fact that the only way Intel has managed to ever compete with AMD's top APU's is by using massively more expensive tech (EDRAM, Expensive process nodes, etc).



2) AMD is at a minimum about to be able to compete with every segment of Intel's once again. Contrary to what Intel (Or AMD) fanboys will tell you - this is a BIG BIG deal. If AMD is even moderately competitive in the CPU space, they will have a massive advantage overall considering they have superior graphics. Apple would be theirs at a minimum.


Hence I am quite literally ascertaining that there could be a win-win scenario where AMD/Radeon stay as their own companies, but make a TON of money allowing Intel to pay them big royalties for some of their patents. Heck maybe there are some patents AMD would like access to.

if intel really want better gpu and want to integrate other company tech into theirs i think the don't need to license it from AMD specifically. right now they already doing cross licensing with nvidia. so if they want to the probably can integrate some what nvidia been doing into their gpu. and looking how intel going after power efficiency with their CPU nvidia also becoming the obvious choice over AMD. not to mention both intel and nvidia current gpu have some form of TBR tech being integrated into them which to my knowledge does not exist for AMD GCN. hence some people believe this licensing deal with AMD is not about integrating AMD tech into intel iGPU but more or less the same thing what intel been doing with their cross licensing deal with nvidia. AMD probably agree to offer less than what nvidia have been charging to intel right now. unless you want to go with what Kyle has been suggesting before (not sure if he still believe that) which is RTG want to break away completely with AMD and then hoping intel would pick up the company as theirs.

 

[renz496]

I think they are talking about licensing some GPGPU related technology that currently is exclusively owned by nVidia and AMD.

intel doesn't need GPGPU. they have xeon phi for that. in fact the very purpose of xeon phi is to prove the world that you don't need gpu like architecture to handle massive parallel work load.

 

[[XC] Oj101]

This is simply a license to continue integrating GPUs into CPUs (eg HD4000, Iris Pro, etc) without patent infringement. The previous agreement with NVIDIA saw neither NVIDIA technology nor NVIDIA branding on Intel CPUs, so why would this be any different?

 

[Captain_Tom]

if intel really want better gpu and want to integrate other company tech into theirs i think the don't need to license it from AMD specifically. right now they already doing cross licensing with nvidia. so if they want to the probably can integrate some what nvidia been doing into their gpu. and looking how intel going after power efficiency with their CPU nvidia also becoming the obvious choice over AMD. not to mention both intel and nvidia current gpu have some form of TBR tech being integrated into them which to my knowledge does not exist for AMD GCN. hence some people believe this licensing deal with AMD is not about integrating AMD tech into intel iGPU but more or less the same thing what intel been doing with their cross licensing deal with nvidia. AMD probably agree to offer less than what nvidia have been charging to intel right now. unless you want to go with what Kyle has been suggesting before (not sure if he still believe that) which is RTG want to break away completely with AMD and then hoping intel would pick up the company as theirs.

Nvidia has almost never been more efficient than AMD. The only time they were was RIGHT when Maxwell came out, and even in that scenario it's efficiency has fallen apart in DX12 where even a 290 is more efficient than the 970. Hell the R9 Nano was the most efficient card until the 1080 came out (And it still competes with the 1060 in efficiency).

Fermi was god awful, Kepler was behind GCN in efficiency, Maxwell had a temporary win (And now a loss), and Pascal has a minor victory in DX11 due to its process advantage. 95w 480's are right around the corner as well...