Intel Arc A380

[Valantar]

This seems to be an emerging theme (or more likely one I'm just now noticing) in highly competitive markets. "Gaming" memory brands have been popping up like weeds, so Crucial axes Ballistix. Chinese headphones are taking over the world, so Sennheiser exits the consumer market entirely (licensing the Sennheiser name to someone else, IIRC). Kingston sells HyperX to HP. Honeywell sold/spun off all of its consumer product lines decades ago, as did GE. There are probably innumerable other examples.

Large brands exiting highly competitive, low margin markets is hardly new, though not all the examples you mention are relevant. Headphones in particular are quite high margin, and Sennheiser left because company leadership wanted to focus on theie professional product lines (aviation, recording industry, etc.) and not spread company efforts too thinly. That's how their consumer brand got turned into Epos, which AFAIK is entirely independent from Sennheiser at this point (but seem to maintain the right to use the name on existing product lines, unless those are made by the pro team now?).

 

[trsttte]

i mean ... arent/werent intel ssds like, par excellence (ignoring the p660 and other qlc memes) - the problem is just, the nand/ssd market is an open one where intel doesn't hold the duopoly, so they were forced to compete on price (-performance), and weren't able to just like hey, this is what we've got, and this is how much we're charging for it - take it or leave it as they are w/ their cpus, basically so they eventually just gave up on that market

Worse than that, they were doing optane and 3d x-point in a joint venture with Micron which pulled out of the project and Intel doesn't have the dedicated capacity to produce nand flash. The technology had a very good performance but couldn't compete on price and a few workstations for nerds is not enough to justify keeping it alive (servers will just throw more cheap stuff in parallel until it meets the target).

This seems to be an emerging theme (or more likely one I'm just now noticing) in highly competitive markets. "Gaming" memory brands have been popping up like weeds, so Crucial axes Ballistix. Chinese headphones are taking over the world, so Sennheiser exits the consumer market entirely (licensing the Sennheiser name to someone else, IIRC). Kingston sells HyperX to HP. Honeywell sold/spun off all of its consumer product lines decades ago, as did GE. There are probably innumerable other examples.

The same old race to the bottom. How many storage brands are there vs number of flash vendors? About 10:1 maybe?

 

[Mussels]

And they fail at most of them, remember (5G) modems? Most of what you quoted is part of the (mother) board or does Intel sell SATA ports now? And as I pointed out earlier they're not that complex.


They acquired Altera, just like AMD did with Xilinx. Outside their core area of x86 CPU, besides "networking" they have very little to show!


Sold that a while back!

Intel Sells SSD Business and Fab to Sk Hynix, New 'Solidigm' Subsidiary Launched

Intel and SK hynix seal the first phase of the deal.

www.tomshardware.com

you can buy them seperately, especially as RAID cards.

I get the feeling you truly didn't know as much on this topic as you think you did - intel sell a LOT of different hardware, they want to charge you for every slice of the pie they can

 

[AusWolf]

What about this?

Did any of these issues occur during the review? Did the "stable" beta driver help?

 

[W1zzard]

What about this?

Don't have time to watch the review, can you TLDR it for me? Happy to answer specific questions

 

[Valantar]

Don't have time to watch the review, can you TLDR it for me? Happy to answer specific questions

Lots and lots of driver/software issues. The base driver seems to work okay (if at very variable levels of optimization), but Arc Control seems to be so buggy as to be unusable:
- frequently breaks itself in unfixable ways, requiring an OS reinstall or manual registry cleaning to make it work again
- frequently fails to open, even directly after an installation
- Their new anti-tearing sync thing causes major artefacting
- OC controls do nothing
- On some PCs intermittent black screen issues, with the gpu refusing to give off any picture at all even after rebooting (but working in other systems)
- configuration conflicts between Arc Control and the regular Intel display settings app

And a bunch more. Their conclusion is essentially that the GPU should have launched with just a bare metal driver and no additional software at all, just a promise that it's coming once it works.

 

[InVasMani]

So in summary I'd have less problems getting a GPU w/o a display output.

 

[W1zzard]

- frequently breaks itself in unfixable ways, requiring an OS reinstall or manual registry cleaning to make it work again

never happened to me

- frequently fails to open, even directly after an installation

works for me. if they are talking about arc control, you need to update it first through the integrated updater

- Their new anti-tearing sync thing causes major artefacting

havent tried

- OC controls do nothing

worked for me, you have to unselect the control after dragging, by clicking into the window. this is a very common mistake rookie programmers make

- On some PCs intermittent black screen issues, with the gpu refusing to give off any picture at all even after rebooting (but working in other systems)

happens mostly with DP, use HDMI or Remote Desktop to work around

 

[Valantar]

works for me. if they are talking about arc control, you need to update it first through the integrated updater

They did, and had significant issues with the updater as well (anything from it not updating to failing to launch after updating to corrupting the install as described above).

worked for me, you have to unselect the control after dragging, by clicking into the window. this is a very common mistake rookie programmers make

Pretty sure their video showed them clicking elsewhere afterwards with no effect (leaving the app? Switching to another?) but i can't say I remember that accurately. Still hardly acceptable...

happens mostly with DP, use HDMI or Remote Desktop to work around

Yeah, that is... not an acceptable level of functionality for a shipping retail product.

 

[W1zzard]

Pretty sure their video showed them clicking elsewhere afterwards with no effect

No idea what they did, but I used Arc Control for overclocking in my review and achieved the results presented there

But yeah, if GN can't get it working, a vast majority of users won't either

 

[AusWolf]

Pretty sure their video showed them clicking elsewhere afterwards with no effect (leaving the app? Switching to another?) but i can't say I remember that accurately. Still hardly acceptable...

I think it was only about overvolting... the slider goes from 0 to +0.2 mV or something, (+0.0002 V), that's why it has no effect. They also complained about overclocking not helping real world performance.

I remember another issue from the video: you have to install the "driver helper" (or something) app in order to install Arc Control.
1. The driver helper sometimes creates multiple instances in Task Manager, eating away your spare RAM,
2. You need to have an internet connection to install Arc Control. If you do a regular "unplug the net - install driver - plug it back in" thing, you won't have Arc Control installed, and you cannot even install it later.

 

[W1zzard]

I think it was only about overvolting... the slider goes from 0 to +0.2 mV or something, (+0.0002 V), that's why it has no effect

Yeah OV is broken

They also complained about overclocking not helping real world performance.

I gained 5% real-world performance, the "+x%" scale in Arc Control is completely wrong, maybe that set wrong expectations

 

[noel_fs]

Precisely how is a product with the wrong price "garbage"?
I believe any reasonable mind would distinguish between an overpriced product and a garbage product.
And prices can change, you know

we are not in the market of stock

 

[kajson]

Lots and lots of driver/software issues. The base driver seems to work okay (if at very variable levels of optimization), but Arc Control seems to be so buggy as to be unusable:
- frequently breaks itself in unfixable ways, requiring an OS reinstall or manual registry cleaning to make it work again
- frequently fails to open, even directly after an installation
- Their new anti-tearing sync thing causes major artefacting
- OC controls do nothing
- On some PCs intermittent black screen issues, with the gpu refusing to give off any picture at all even after rebooting (but working in other systems)
- configuration conflicts between Arc Control and the regular Intel display settings app

And a bunch more. Their conclusion is essentially that the GPU should have launched with just a bare metal driver and no additional software at all, just a promise that it's coming once it works.

Sounds like anything but a paper launch on august 22th would be ludicrous. Certainly they wont try to get this into oems anytime soon? The negative impact on the brand name surely isn't worth it to intel. Personally I think it would be incredibly arrogant to do a non paper launch, wasting many hours of every costumer troubleshooting or worse, having them do your alpha testing for you. ( not even remotely close to beta in my eyes ) They should not be allowed to sell it with the current drivers/software.

 

[catulitechup]

And now is possible buy arc a380 in us courtesy of newegg at 139us

ASRock Challenger Arc A380 Video Card A380 CLI 6G OC - Newegg.com

Buy ASRock Challenger Arc A380 6GB GDDR6 PCI Express 4.0 ITX Video Card A380 CLI 6G OC with fast shipping and top-rated customer service. Once you know, you Newegg!

www.newegg.com

 

[Lew Zealand]

I can get it tomorrow. I'm tempted out of pure curiosity, but not enough.

Mmmmmostly not enough...

 

[R0H1T]

I get the feeling you truly didn't know as much on this topic as you think you did

I'm pretty sure I know a lot about Intel & their various product lines with lots of infamous bugs, though looks like some of you would like to pretend that just because it's Intel they are flawless or they're doing great everywhere!

An Intel Atom C2000 bug is killing products from multiple manufacturers

Intel's Avoton and Rangeley server products appear to have a significant flaw that's killing hardware years before its expected end-of-life.

www.extremetech.com

Intel Atom C2000 AVR54 Bug Strikes STH Today

A rough evening and morning in the STH infrastructure after the power failed and several infrastructure pieces did not come back up. That includes our primary firewall due to the Intel Atom C2000 series AVR54 bug.

www.servethehome.com

https://www.reddit.com/r/intel/comments/gp2okm

I can find more but I'm sure everyone knows this useful thing called Google

 

[Valantar]

I'm pretty sure I know a lot about Intel & their various product lines with lots of infamous bugs, though looks like some of you would like to pretend that just because it's Intel they are flawless or they're doing great everywhere!
I can find more but I'm sure everyone knows this useful thing called Google

Has anyone here been denying that Intel has made a bunch of buggy products? Not that I can recall, at least. Can you please just accept that you made a silly, overbroad statement that simply does not match reality, had explained to you why it was wrong, and that this is perfectly fine? This just looks like even more goalpost-shifting on your part. Intel has excelled in a bunch of product segments throughout the decades. No amount of examples of flaws or bugs will change that reality, as those things are not contradictory whatsoever. The only way you could prove your point would be to show how Intel has in fact never been successful in each of the segments that have been pointed out to you - because that's how broad your initial statement was. So, unless you can actually prove that Intel hasn't been successful in any segment outside of X86 CPUs throughout the lifetime of the company, maybe just ... accept that you said something wrong, and move on?

 

[R0H1T]

Nope I meant it mainly wrt their failed ventures, & hence you being pedantic about this point ~ they've never really excelled at anything else!

Then you countered my post with something like ~ Not to mention FPGAs, datacenter/server networking and fabric, server RAID controllers/HBAs, 5G-related ASICs, SSDs, non-volatile memory solutions ... they do a ton of stuff. With varying success? Sure. But a ton of stuff still.

So tell me again what was your point?

The only way you could prove your point would be to show how Intel has in fact never been successful in each of the segments that have been pointed out to you

What you & the others have been doing is your own "subjective" deep dive analysis on what I meant. I clarified a bit later that it's more to do with more complex systems like CPU, GPU etc. Since this is an ARC GPU thread it was more about that product & then you tried to dodge that by bringing in SSD, Optane, networking & what not. And now you're ignoring these product failures, some of them being massive fails?

If you're going to be pedantic then why don't we deep dive into your definition of "successful" & do a through analysis of your claims, including all these major whoopsies by Intel

Intel for 20-30 years was the only choice in the x86 space & for about 2 decades in the server space. You think that natural monopoly didn't give them a distinct advantage in selling & setting up their ecosystem?

And in the context of this thread you can define "excelled" however you'd like to. It's like celebrating the second or third participant just for taking part in a 2/3 horse race!

 

[Valantar]

Nope I meant it mainly wrt their failed ventures, & hence you being pedantic about this point ~ they've never really excelled at anything else!

Then you countered my post with something like ~ Not to mention FPGAs, datacenter/server networking and fabric, server RAID controllers/HBAs, 5G-related ASICs, SSDs, non-volatile memory solutions ... they do a ton of stuff. With varying success? Sure. But a ton of stuff still.

So tell me again what was your point?

What you & the others have been doing is your own "subjective" deep dive analysis on what I meant. I clarified a bit later that it's more to do with more complex systems like CPU, GPU etc. Since this is an ARC GPU thread it was more about that product & then you tried to dodge that by bringing in SSD, Optane, networking & what not. And now you're ignoring these product failures, some of them being massive fails?

If you're going to be pedantic then why don't we deep dive into your definition of "successful" & do a through analysis of your claims, including all these major whoopsies by Intel

Intel for 20-30 years was the only choice in the x86 space & for about 2 decades in the server space. You think that natural monopoly didn't give them a distinct advantage in selling & setting up their ecosystem?

And in the context of this thread you can define "excelled" however you'd like to. It's like celebrating the second or third participant just for taking part in a 2/3 horse race!

You mean to say you made an overbroad statement, tried to walk it back when confronted with that fact, but the people responding to you refused to agree to your arbitrary delineations?

And, to be clear: nobody has argued that Intel's dominant X86 position hasn't benefitted them elsewhere. That is quite clearly the case - but it doesn't change the fact that, for example, their network adapters have been considered the industry standard for a decade or more across many if not most forms of networking.

As for the whole "I wasn't talking about in general, I meant CPUs, GPUs, etc." thing: what's "etc" in this case? Is there any other product category that is comparable to those two in the computing industry? You might say accelerators, but most of those are GPUs, and non-GPU accelerators are rather niche and new. And, if that is the line you're drawing, doesn't that kind of make what you're saying meaningless? "Intel has never really excelled outside of CPUs" isn't quite the same as "Intel has never really excelled in GPUs", is it?

 

[Mussels]

I'm pretty sure I know a lot about Intel & their various product lines with lots of infamous bugs, though looks like some of you would like to pretend that just because it's Intel they are flawless or they're doing great everywhere!

An Intel Atom C2000 bug is killing products from multiple manufacturers

Intel's Avoton and Rangeley server products appear to have a significant flaw that's killing hardware years before its expected end-of-life.

www.extremetech.com

Intel Atom C2000 AVR54 Bug Strikes STH Today

A rough evening and morning in the STH infrastructure after the power failed and several infrastructure pieces did not come back up. That includes our primary firewall due to the Intel Atom C2000 series AVR54 bug.

www.servethehome.com

https://www.reddit.com/r/intel/comments/gp2okm

I can find more but I'm sure everyone knows this useful thing called Google

Yeah... nice topic change.
Not sorry I forgot to check this thread for updates.

You made a statement in error and just dug yourself deeper and deeper, until you decided to talk about something else. Fun.

 

[HD64G]

And... that's it folks!

Sadly, descrete GPUs from Intel won't be made for long. The software strugle and some hw problems demanded much money from Intel to sustain that product segment until it would be financially self-sustainable and Itel execs decided to axe it. So, Battlemage will be out with a few models since its design is ready but short-term sw support and not future products after that will be another big fail for the big blue.

I would like to get another competitor to keep the duo in check price-wise but it was too hard and too expensive even for Intel to make that out of the blue...

I wonder if people can appreciate AMD for maintaining both CPU and GPU segments close to their competitors for a few years now and reach the top lately.

 

[AusWolf]

And... that's it folks!

Sadly, descrete GPUs from Intel won't be made for long. The software strugle and some hw problems demanded much money from Intel to sustain that product segment until it would be financially self-sustainable and Itel execs decided to axe it. So, Battlemage will be out with a few models since its design is ready but short-term sw support and not future products after that will be another big fail for the big blue.

I would like to get another competitor to keep the duo in check price-wise but it was too hard and too expensive even for Intel to make that out of the blue...

I wonder if people can appreciate AMD for maintaining both CPU and GPU segments close to their competitors for a few years now and reach the top lately.

Moore's Law Is Dead is a rumour channel. Their content has no news value in my opinion.

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

Well a quick Google of Arc A380 brings up A380 model airplane kits and interestingly a Intel arc GPU sticker, but NO a380 GPU.

Soooooooo, there's that.

Xe is dead, it's e shame but it doesn't work, and isn't out in time to be competitive with anything, and Intel knows it.

MLID has it right IMHO.

 

[HD64G]

Well a quick Google of Arc A380 brings up A380 model airplane kits and interestingly a Intel arc GPU sticker, but NO a380 GPU.

Soooooooo, there's that.

Xe is dead, it's e shame but it doesn't work, and isn't out in time to be competitive with anything, and Intel knows it.

MLID has it right IMHO.

His sources (at least 2 of those) about this matter are directly from Intel.