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Intel Discrete Graphics Chips Confirmed

Posted by kdawson on from the ready-or-not dept.

Arun Demeure writes "There have been rumors of Intel's re-entry into discrete graphics for months. Now Beyond3D reports that Intel has copped to the project on their own site. They describe it as a 'many-core' architecture aimed at 'high-end client platforms,' but also extending to other market segments in the future, with 'plans for accelerated CPU integration.' This might also encourage others to follow Intel's strategy of open-sourcing their Linux drivers. So, better watch out NVIDIA and AMD/ATI — there's new competition on the horizon."

14 of 159 comments (clear)

  1. My money is on NVidia by LaughingCoder · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Intel is years behind in this market. And they tried this once before, with dismal results: http://news.com.com/Intel+retreats+from+graphics+c hips/2100-1001_3-230019.html

    If anything the graphics market has gotten even more specialized since then. I don't know why they think they can succeed this time.

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    The more you regulate a company, the worse its products become.
    1. Re:My money is on NVidia by should_be_linear · · Score: 2, Interesting

      If I am reading this article right, "multi-core" and and "high-end" graphics probably means that intel is going after realtime ray-tracing HW support, which is seen as natural succesor of current z-buffered graphics. There are university projects already proving that ray-tracing hardware support works fine and bring way better graphics then what is available by ATI/nVidia. Battle for best ray-tracing HW will start soon among all 3 key players (ATI/Intel/nVidia) and Intel probably thinks this is right time to enter graphic HW business again, now that are all previous graphical HW patents, resarch and know-hows more or less obsolete.

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      839*929
    2. Re:My money is on NVidia by Creepy · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I suspect the real problem is because high end cards are starting to push Shader unification.

      From a chipset standpoint, Intel actually makes decent (not spectacular, but better than many) graphics hardware already, they just don't have hardware transformation and lighting (T&L), which gets offloaded to the CPU. That means you can't be throttling your CPU(s)/cores and need a decent pipe between the hardware and memory. Intel said a couple of years back that it's a myth that the bottleneck is usually in T&L and the problem is actually pixel throughput.

      As far as I can tell, that means
      a) the bottleneck is between geometry (T&L) and shading (pixel hardware), meaning it's because of the software driver.
      or
      b) the bottleneck is between shading and the display, meaning Intel's hardware is too crappy to push that many pixels.

      The first is a meh (no surprise - it's caused by having geometry in software) the second would be a hardware issue Intel needs to resolve to work with larger displays.

      Now back to Shader Unification - basically, if companies like nVidia and ATI move to unified shaders they can assign the types they need as needed and not leave many of them idle. Both of those companies have experience in unified shader architectures already (i.e. the Xbox, and GeForce 8 series), so it wouldn't surprise me if this were the trend of the future. Intel needs to move their software T&L into hardware to create a unified architecture - assuming that is the way of the future.

      Another issue is that unified architectures are basically high speed generalized floating point units - these have practical uses in other areas besides graphics (physics, supercomputing, even databases - there are even web pages like this one dedicated to it). Intel has to see this as a threat and know that they need a response should their main competitor, AMD (ATI), go in that direction.

  2. Intel is the only one... by Rastignac · · Score: 2, Interesting

    ...who can compete with ATI and Nvidia.
    Intel has technology, has brains, has money, has plants. They can do something "as good as" the two others. Competition is a good thing (prices falling, etc); only two main actors for videocards is a bad things.
    S3 can't compete. Matrox can't compete. 3dfx can't compete (they're dead). Others can't compete. Intel is our only hope.

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    -- Rastignac was here.
    1. Re:Intel is the only one... by nbannerman · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Well, SONICblue (formerly S3 / Diamond) are essentially dead as well(chapter 11, most product lines sold off), but Matrox still survive with a 3-5% share of the market, and they're doing fairly well in niche markets - scientific, medical, military and financial. As for 3dfx, their assets (intellectual and staff) where purchased by NVIDIA; so any innovation from their prime years is probably still alive and well (to a degree).

  3. I wonder if this will change onboard graphics... by jimstapleton · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Will Intel be clever enough and innovative enough to have a "GPU" socket on such motherboards? Maybe even GPU-specific memory sockets rather than shared memory?

    One can always hope.

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    34486853790
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  4. Re:I wonder if this will change onboard graphics.. by Lonewolf666 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    That socket is usually called a "PCIe slot" these days. If you use a socket instead of just integrating the graphics chip into one that is onboard anyway, you might as well use the established solution.
    Another interesting approach (albeit not for high end machines and somewhat OT here) is AMD's plan to integrate the GPU with the CPU. That way, you might have some more choice than with a soldered in chip, and GPU cooling could profit from the availability of decent CPU coolers.

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    C - the footgun of programming languages
  5. Intel can interface with theircpus by majortom1981 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Intel has a chance. Intel has the experience with cpu's. Intel can also interface with their new processors. I think Intel could atleast put up a good fight. Why do you think Amd bought ati? They know that intel can do gpus and really good ones if they tried and the only way amd would be able to compete would be buying a gpu maker wich they did.

  6. Real-time raytracing from Intel ? by Rastignac · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I've been waiting for years for such kickass videocards. I've seen running protoypes in labs/universities; quite impressive videos. After a few years, now, the technology should be ready for the big market ? Pixar-like technology at home !
    Real-time raytracing needs a lot of power; so, a multicore videocard is a great idea ! With raytracing, each core can compute one part of each picture. Better than SLI.
    Using their knowledges, Intel can build a very fast multicore real-time raytracing videocard. It will be "something different", and it will compete with ATI and Nvidia in a new innovative way...

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    -- Rastignac was here.
  7. Re:Intel Video hardware is just nice... by Andy+Dodd · · Score: 4, Interesting

    "Intel drivers for Linux Just Work(TM). I installed Ubuntu 6.10 on my Acer notebook, with a i915g video adapter, and everything worked without any extra effort. And I'm even able to use Beryl/Compiz as my default window manager, without any stability issues."

    This is because Intel's graphics chipsets are crippled and don't implement any of the features covered by other companies' patents which force ATI and NVidia to go closed-source.

    You seem to forget that ATI had fully open-source drivers until they were forced to "go closed" due to licensing another company's IP for their chipsets. In that particular case, the first incident was S3 Texture Compression, a feature essentially required by all modern games, and apparently with patent licensing agreements that prohibit closed-source drivers. For a few months, S3TC was why Unreal Tournament 2003 (or was it 2k4?) only ran on NVidia cards under Linux - it wasn't until ATI released binary drivers that supported S3TC that UT2k3 would run on ATI cards under Linux.

    The end result is that ultimately, the choice will not be Intel's as to whether to go open-source or not for full functionality, just as ATI had no choice but to "go closed" or simply leave certain critical features disabled/unsupported under Linux.

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    retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
  8. Driver Open Sourcing by Midnight+Warrior · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Has anyone considered that the reason ATI/NVidia won't open source their drivers/firmware is because there are blatant copyright and patent violations in their code? I'm not saying there are violations, but if there are, then I would expect each to violently defend against anyone seeing their source code. To date, the best argument heard is that access to the code would provide their competitors an unfair advantage into their optimization techniques, which most of us recognize to be hog wash. At worst, they wrap it up in "we have licensed proprietary algorithms" declarations and refuse to give the community a chance to work around those algorithms.

    There is only one way forward. NVidia should fund the effort to rewrite their firmware/drivers, providing only the hardware register descriptions and nuances. I'm quite sure others have asked NVidia to do this already, but Intel moving forward with this plan should force the other's hand. I'm surprised that Microsoft hasn't chimed in here because for every open specification we get in the OSS world, they also get. That's where all those Microsoft drivers come from. And only on occasion is a vendor-supplied driver better that the Microsoft one. Open sourcing any drivers also helps Microsoft support more hardware out of the box, without a multitude of licensing agreements and royalty schemes.

    And of course, NVidia (and now ATI) have been adding more treasure to their war chests with the PCIe motherboards. I just bought a new motherboard and it's extremely hard to find a new board with PCI-Express that doesn't have an nForce or ATI chipset.

    It's going to be a tough game for Intel because it's not just graphics drivers. AMD could play into this game if they took a decisive maneuver with their GPU integration into the CPU. Remember that AMD now owns ATI.

  9. Question about Intel Media Accelerator 9XX by StressGuy · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I've been monitoring this thread with some interest. I'm looking to build a new home computer that will run Linux exclusively (most likely Kubuntu). Mostly, it will be my personal workstation but I do plan to install some games - mostly 1st person shooter types. While I don't require "cutting edge", I would like decent performance. Can this chipset handle things like the latest UT or Doom III on Linux?

    I mean, I like nVidia, but if Intel is supported out-of-the-box with open source drivers, then that works for me as well.

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    A goal is a dream with a deadline
  10. Industry Benefit by Darkryft · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I believe in competition being good, but I'm not sure it's all about just competition. This likely could be the move to save PC Gaming as a whole. Technology-wise PC's will always have superiority over consoles, but there are rare arguments to the economics of top-end gaming PC's against consoles. Microsoft and Sony take huge losses to push their hardware, and slowly but surely it does pay off - Gears of War on the Xbox 360 has sold 3 million copies in just a hair over 60 days. Name one PC title that is using every bleeding-edge technology and has sold that many copies that fast. You won't find it, because the segment of people who will pay between $2500 and $5000 for a PC to play those kinds of games (Crysis, Oblivion) is so small you can't hope to sell that many copies. Intel knows how to make computer chips quickly, and on the cheap. That is what I feel they are bringing to this contest. I think Intel believes they can make a graphics platform just as powerful or more powerful than Nvidia/ATI and can do it for less cost. That is how you generate competition not just in the graphics sector, but you make PC's more competitive against the consoles. The PC has endless amounts of good games to sell, the problem is there aren't cheap PCs that will play them with the slickness that consoles provide. Ultimately this move should make the top-end PC cheaper, which is good for everyone because the inherent competition will force Nvidia/ATI to lower prices. I like this move. Go Intel!

  11. Re:Intel Video hardware is just nice... by realnowhereman · · Score: 4, Interesting
    This is because Intel's graphics chipsets are crippled and don't implement any of the features covered by other companies' patents which force ATI and NVidia to go closed-source.

    And I should care about that why?

    Intel cards are not bleeding edge. However, if all you want is a reasonably powerful, 3D supporting card for your open source desktop, then they are perfect. I don't require a huge framerate in $LATEST_GAME, because I don't play it. If I did, then an Intel card would obviously not be for me.

    My intel-based graphics work perfectly, and don't give a moments trouble. I can run 3D applications if I want, and a flashy eye-candy-full desktop too. I previously had an nVidia card, and it was nothing but a fight - is my card supported with this release of the driver? Is it crashing my computer? Is it going to compile with the latest kernel?

    Nowadays, I do nothing but apt-get upgrade to keep my graphics in order and I am a lot happier for it.
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    Carpe Daemon