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  • ballsystemlord - Thursday, October 22, 2020 - link

    There's so little information from Intel, it's hardly worth a story.
  • PeachNCream - Friday, October 23, 2020 - link

    There are a lot of reasons to hold back details, but still build hype regarding the product launch. Nevertheless, I do agree the information shared at the moment is far too vague.
  • Vitor - Thursday, October 22, 2020 - link

    I believe Intel will struggle to sell those even if they turn out good. Intel is just not seen as a gpu company.
  • inighthawki - Thursday, October 22, 2020 - link

    For gaming, no. But if they price it well and it has decent power efficiency, I could easily see them attracting a certain subset of people who want something "good enough." Maybe someone who does very light gaming, or a home theater PC setup or something.
  • whatthe123 - Friday, October 23, 2020 - link

    their igpus are technically "good enough" for light gaming and especially HTPC (these days many chips are good enough for that even at 4K HDR).

    These are meant to perform above their usual good enough igpus into discrete GPU territory against AMD and Nvidia. I don't think intel will come anywhere near their high end performance for a few generations at least, but I also doubt they will bother shipping something that can't even compete. Whenever larabee/knights failed they'd sweep it under the rug without shipping it out to OEMs.
  • MenhirMike - Friday, October 23, 2020 - link

    Is HDR supported by Intel iGPUs? I remember that it wasn't universal. But yeah, 4K HTPC has been a thing since Kaby Lake added HEVC hardware decoding, and before that, H.264 hardware decoding has been around since forever.
  • vladx - Sunday, October 25, 2020 - link

    Yes Intel's iGPUs support HDR, it's just limited to 4k for both VP9 and HEVC.
  • Mr Perfect - Friday, October 23, 2020 - link

    I really rather hope that Intel DOES have something to compete in the gaming segment, even if it's just the mainstream parts. Nvidia has had to little competition as of late, and even if AMD knocks one out of the park with Big Navi, three companies competing will be better for us then just two. Remember when everyone was annoyed by the 2080 Ti jumping up to $1200? Well, the $1500 3090 doesn't seem to.
  • Kjella - Friday, October 23, 2020 - link

    At more than double the price of the RTX 3080, most people see it as a Titan in all but name. The reviewers all agree you shouldn't buy it for gaming. But sure if you want to pay $800 extra to have 10% higher FPS than the plebs you can. For most people the effective price went down from 2080 Ti to 3080 levels.

    The presentation was actually very similar to the recent AMD launch, pitch the 5900x as the top "normal" processor and then if you really want the best of the best we have a 5950x. Like we're not even going to pretend it's good value, but if you want the absolutely best it's there for you. I'm fine with that, if you have cash to burn it's funding new R&D and not spent on pure frivolity.

    Personally I'm curious to see if Nvidia w/ARM will launch their own assault on the x86 ecosystem, now that Apple is throwing its weight behind ARM processors for the desktop. If they can enlist Google too, they have a fighting chance to take down WinTel (Windows & Intel for the uninitiated).
  • JfromImaginstuff - Saturday, October 24, 2020 - link

    Well, there exists a certain windows 10 for arm, so yeah, not wintel more like Intel and AMD (amtel?)
  • lorribot - Saturday, October 24, 2020 - link

    Don't forget LinTel, but you can also get LinArm, LinPPC, LinSparc (among many others), WinArm and MacTel and MacArm.

    For those that like their OSes a bit more exotic, VMS is moving from IA64 (Intel's only true 64 bit processor) to x86 so that VMSTel to err... VMSTel having been VMSVAC and VMSAlpha (there was also WinAlpha and WinIA64 too).
    There are always choices you just have to look for them.
  • JayNor - Friday, October 23, 2020 - link

    Intel is also in production of SG1, which is a 4 tile version of DG1 aimed at servers.
    DG1 and SG1 are both based on the Xe-LP GPU in Tiger Lake.
  • valinor89 - Friday, October 23, 2020 - link

    If one of the tiles says "Indeed" every so often I'm sold!
  • pixieluc - Friday, October 23, 2020 - link

    Tek'ma'te, Brother
  • wolfesteinabhi - Friday, October 23, 2020 - link

    Intel will easily replace the MX250/350 kind of high volume chips with this ... its easier for OEM's to buy complete chipset from Intel and some good discounts perhaps.
  • bill.rookard - Friday, October 23, 2020 - link

    Agreed. Much easier for an OEM to click an extra box on the order sheet from Intel for something with a higher power integrated graphics than to coordinate shipments between two manufacturers...
  • TheinsanegamerN - Friday, October 23, 2020 - link

    Maybe. The ryzen 4800u and 4700u already perform at MX 350 level, and intel's new Xe enables 11th gen chips will be in the same ballpark. I'd see those as far better replacements, yet the MX150/250/350 live on.
  • wr3zzz - Friday, October 23, 2020 - link

    If the rumor that discrete Xe can work together with iGPU Xe were true then Intel has a pretty nice in to sell some discrete chips.
  • tipoo - Friday, October 23, 2020 - link

    They'd have done better than 16 years of AMD and Nvidia trying and failing out of multi GPU scaling for games, if they did achieve this. So I'm kind of doubting it.

    My OpenCL loads can target multiple GPUs just fine though
  • JayNor - Friday, October 23, 2020 - link

    Intel demoed 4 tile scalability for Xe-HP, but that is using something other than pcie interconnect between tiles according to David Blythe's Hotchips 2020 presentation.

    I wouldn't be surprised to see decent use of both GPUs by oneAPI, but I would be surprised to see the linear per tile performance increases that were demonstrated for the 4 tile Xe-HP.
  • beginner99 - Friday, October 23, 2020 - link

    Agree. For gaming it's too little especially compared to iGPU and doesn't offer any other thing an iGPU already does. With a entry level NV card you can at least prototype some CUDA workloads for example.
  • Eliadbu - Friday, October 23, 2020 - link

    No one at Intel thinks that first gen even if they come out to be good products would gain significant market share, but the idea is building a brand over multiple generations and not relying on first gen to b
  • Eliadbu - Friday, October 23, 2020 - link

    Build brand name.

    Anandtech please put edit button. The lack of one is killing me sometimes.
  • hubick - Thursday, October 22, 2020 - link

    The DG1 would be interesting for a desktop Linux system. I don't see them actually being sold anywhere yet though?
  • JayNor - Friday, October 23, 2020 - link

    Asus and Acer are already advertising DG1 in products for q4.
  • hubick - Friday, October 23, 2020 - link

    Those are laptops, I want the discrete card for my desktop PC. https://www.anandtech.com/show/15364/intels-dg1-di...
  • Spunjji - Friday, October 23, 2020 - link

    I'm not sure there will be a DG1 in that form - the performance is too low. I think those were test cards and it's going to be a notebook-only product - at least, based on the lack of announcements outside that area.
  • JayNor - Friday, October 23, 2020 - link

    Intel is also in production of SG1 ... a 4 tile version of DG1. Maybe these will make it down to desktop.
  • asfletch - Tuesday, October 27, 2020 - link

    I agree - I want a super efficient single slot low profile GPU for my fanless htpc. Gt1030 is the closest so far, but still needs a huge heatsink if you opt for no fan. Looked into MXM adapters but can't find anything useful/affordable.
  • Alistair - Friday, October 23, 2020 - link

    You can tell they have no confidence in the product. Where are our $100 add-in boards? Nothing.
  • nadim.kahwaji - Friday, October 23, 2020 - link

    seems no Rtx 3xxx review :(
  • oRAirwolf - Friday, October 23, 2020 - link

    If I were Anandtech I wouldn't even bother with a normal 3080 review at this point. It's too late. I would be interested to see an analysis of some of the AIB partner designs like the highest end EVGA and Asus cards. Gamers Nexus is already on the case though so that is somewhat pointless as well.
  • nadim.kahwaji - Friday, October 23, 2020 - link

    yes sure, but hopefully they will include an architecture Deep Dive (the Anandtech way) :)
  • Spunjji - Friday, October 23, 2020 - link

    That's what I'm waiting for. I don't much care about a product review - just an analysis of the architecture and why it performs the way it does.
  • PeachNCream - Friday, October 23, 2020 - link

    They never did a 1050 review either and frequently miss GPU products in the overall stack, but it isn't that important since lots of other companies have shared their reviews already. Given the lateness of the NV3K series reviews, its likely you will never see them posted here without being measured as part of a PC or laptop product's benchmark.
  • DigitalFreak - Friday, October 23, 2020 - link

    It is strange that this far from launch they still don't have a 3080/3090 review. Maybe they've had a falling out with Nvidia and have to buy their cards like the rest of us.
  • Murloc - Friday, October 23, 2020 - link

    IIRC the issue is that they only have one reviewer to do GPUs and he had to move because of the fires in california, so it just didn't get done.
  • Kjella - Friday, October 23, 2020 - link

    I'm sure they had their reasons, but it's not the first big launch Anandtech has failed to cover and it's frustrating to be a fan and get turned away. It's the sports journalist version of missing out on the Olympics, like you write great stuff the rest of the year but seriously bro? I realize that with a virtual organization it's hard to have a backup plan and there's no shortage of alternative reviews so no real harm done, but mentally it's a mismatch between the reliability in quality and the unreliability in delivery.
  • lmcd - Friday, October 23, 2020 - link

    The fires in California are pretty unprecedented and could easily have taken down a larger/more centralized outfit as well. This critique is pretty random and arbitrary.
  • Spunjji - Monday, October 26, 2020 - link

    Yup. Haven't yet gotten tired of saying I'm tired of people whining about the 3080 review...
  • Machinus - Friday, October 23, 2020 - link

    I'm "shipping" a GPU also. Trust me.
  • edzieba - Friday, October 23, 2020 - link

    "Iris Xe Max"

    C'mon guys, don't name the product at the bottom of your performance stack 'max'!
  • sing_electric - Friday, October 23, 2020 - link

    Well, it's Iris Max. I don't know if the plan is that all discrete parts will be Iris Max then a product number (so "Iris Max" is the equivalent of "GeForce," or "Radeon"), or it's just to denote that it's the top of the stack for Intel laptop graphics.

    If you think "Iris Max" sounds dumb, I agree, but so does GeForce, so...
  • Fergy - Friday, October 23, 2020 - link

    For the last 30 years you didn't choose an Intel GPU. You got it for free and kept it if it was good enough. I've never been happy to have to use an Intel GPU. Always 3 to 4 years behind to where they should be.
  • PeachNCream - Friday, October 23, 2020 - link

    That depends on your needs really. Since the GMA950, I've been satisfied for the most part with Intel's graphics performance and have been really happy with the HD 3000 and newer for mundane computing tasks and various low demand games that I know will work well on whatever iGPU comes with the laptop or desktop. Not having the cooling, power demand, or costs associated with a dGPU helps quite a bit, but you do have to adjust your expectations and workload.
  • Spunjji - Friday, October 23, 2020 - link

    Indeed. As a gamer I bag on Intel plenty for their GPUs, but in the timeline you mentioned they went from "oh god please no" to "hey, I can play quite a few games on this".
  • Murloc - Friday, October 23, 2020 - link

    they've been good enough for work and light gaming for years now.
  • Oxford Guy - Friday, October 23, 2020 - link

    Nvidia and AMD have been peddling ancient GPU tech at the low end for years.

    It would be a nice change to not see MicroCenter selling 8400GS cards and GeForce 210s.

    A bit more competition might prompt both companies (or at least one of them) to stay current at the low end.
  • lmcd - Friday, October 23, 2020 - link

    I'd be excited to see Intel at the low end, because there's a better chance of a cheap card with good encode/decode blocks. I'd also be excited for the potential for virtualized graphics. Even if the wonderful slice-assignment virtualization goes away for consumer (which it probably won't), AMD has botched its UEFI implementation for literally 3+ years, and Nvidia explicitly disables virtualization (in Windows guests) in its GeForce line.

    Intel could revolutionize GPU virtualization for consumers. Sure, it's a small market, but there's reasons to like Intel in this space.
  • JayNor - Tuesday, February 9, 2021 - link

    Raja posted an image from a Xe-HPG mesh shader test today, so apparently not dead.

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