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  • shabby - Tuesday, May 10, 2022 - link

    China/oem: now
    Retail: never
  • Abort-Retry-Fail - Tuesday, May 10, 2022 - link


    Not sure about that ... too much riding on all this. There will be "bloodshed" on entry-level discreet GPUs between AMD, Intel and nVidia.

    I'm looking forward to a 'new and improved' AMD "Radeon RX 6550 XT" going toe-to-toe with the Chipzillah Arc A350/310 at TSMC 6nm ___ and nVidia's "play"

    I also look forward to seeing new Radeon 'Video Core Next' logic against the Arc/NVENC logic.

    Grab your popcorn ...
  • powerarmour - Tuesday, May 10, 2022 - link

    Agreed, it's DOA.
    If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.
  • Great_Scott - Wednesday, May 25, 2022 - link

    From the release schedule, it looks like Intel is aware that first-gen ARC is a dud.

    That's a shame, although if it's because of software/driver reasons it might get better later on.

    Unfortunately for competition, Intel is way too late; the upcoming Zen 4 processors are all APUs so it looks like the window for low-end graphics cards is coming to a close.
  • ZipSpeed - Tuesday, May 10, 2022 - link

    Yawn. If there was even a glimmer of excitement for these GPUs, it's been long gone. With Ada and RDNA3 launching not too long after, I imagine most people will be looking in that direction anyway. The question is if Intel will continue to iterate even if they're not competitive, or if they'll give up like prior failed markets.
  • brucethemoose - Tuesday, May 10, 2022 - link

    To paraphrase Anand, there are no bad products, just bad prices.

    And there is certainly room for a better priced competitor this year, even if its a bit last gen.
  • powerarmour - Tuesday, May 10, 2022 - link

    We've definitely had bad products, even when they're cheap.
  • TheinsanegamerN - Tuesday, May 10, 2022 - link

    Oh there are just bad products. The RX 6500xt is a good example of a GPU that suffers from hardware limitations. The GTX 970 gimped by its own memory bus is another example. The FX 5800/5900/5950 GPUs with their poor image rendering, ece.
  • Abort-Retry-Fail - Tuesday, May 10, 2022 - link


    LOL . . . *** F A I L ***
    The AMD 'Rope-A-Dope' strikes, again.
    _______________________

    1) Navi 24 = A die size of 107 mm² at TSMC 6nm;
    2) ( the 'successor' of the Arctic Islands AMD Lexa GCN 4.0 variant from 2016-2020 );
    3) the Navi 24 will become 'Dr Su's Graphic Work Horse';
    4) anticipated yield = 250+ 'dies per wafer' (?);
    5) the Navi 24 variants begat Mobility Radeon and entry 'Pro' products; and,
    6) the Zen 3+ Rembrandt (6000 series) RDNA 2 APUs . . .
    _ _ _ _ _ are likely precursors to the AMD Ryzen 7000 ‘Phoenix’ APUs With RDNA 3
    _ _ _ _ _ with Navi 24 based 'graphic engines' DDR5 and that fancy last-level cache.

    Rope-A-Bunch-Of-Dopes, indeed.
  • meacupla - Tuesday, May 10, 2022 - link

    I disagree, there are bad products. They often like to catch fire and/or explode.
    IDK about you, but I don't like it when my house burns down from a bad product.
  • ragenalien - Tuesday, May 10, 2022 - link

    Intel might know something we don't. AMD just launched a refresh (today) so I doubt RDNA3 shows up before Q4 or more likely early 2023. Nvidia might launch their high end 4070 and up cards later this summer but the intel cards were never meant to compete with those. Hopefully they price accordingly.
  • ZipSpeed - Tuesday, May 10, 2022 - link

    Correct. Alchemist was meant to compete with RDNA2 and Ampere, and Battlemage is supposed to to go toe-to-toe with RDNA3 and Ada. I wouldn't read too much into AMD's refresh launches and launches of their next-gen. As an example, Zen 2 refresh launched four months before Zen 3. I think we'll see Navi 33 (monolithic) this year. Navi 31 & 32 (MCM) is the question mark.
  • Drumsticks - Tuesday, May 10, 2022 - link

    It took nearly two years for the 3000 series and the RDNA2 series to actually descend to MSRP and have good supply. While the issues they had then might not entirely affect us now, I imagine there is space for Intel to get the sales they want. I doubt 4000 series/RDNA3 are going to be easily available so quickly.
  • wrkingclass_hero - Tuesday, May 10, 2022 - link

    Those GPUs are a glimmer of excrement.
  • Mr Perfect - Tuesday, May 10, 2022 - link

    Hopefully Battlemage doesn't get pushed back. If Alchemist ends up just being a stop gap product between now and 2023, then Battlemage has a chance at showing up along with it's peers from AMD and Nvidia.

    Intel has shown a willingness to cut the lifecycle of an undesirable product short before, most recently with Alder Lake putting Rocket Lake in the rearview mirror after seven short months.
  • meacupla - Tuesday, May 10, 2022 - link

    Alchemist and Battlemage are both stop gap products, until the 3rd generation shows up.
    3rd Gen is where Intel wants to release a halo product with mature drivers that will compete with the 4090ti and 7950XT or whatever halo product AMD and nvidia have at the time.

    Intel even admits that Alchemist and Battlemage are stop gaps, as they expect mature drivers to up GPU performance by some 10~20% down the line, and they specifically said they wanted to go for the crown by 2025.
  • whatthe123 - Tuesday, May 10, 2022 - link

    they really need to just stop with the botched releases. yes it will hurt their pockets short term but I can't imagine they're being all that productive with all the effort going into half baked launches, especially the software supporting it. intel 7 might've been late but TSMC is on schedule for now so just eat the loss and move on to newer designs on mature nodes.
  • cyrusfox - Wednesday, May 11, 2022 - link

    In childhood development, children don't skip the walking stage and go straight from crawling to running. Likewise in semiconductor fabrication, it is sequential/iterative innovation and development. You can't skip a node and be successful at something more difficult without going through the trials and refinement of the current generation. Its easy to say just jump ahead, impossible to perform as they are in fact iterative developments. Intel reinforced their desire to make top tier chips with their IDM 2.0 announcements and new fab expansion plan, putting to rest the rumors of Intel relying solely on TSMC. Intel better figure it out inhouse or TSMC will continue to raise prices on a captive market.
  • whatthe123 - Wednesday, May 11, 2022 - link

    this isn't child development, designs are set years in advance and intel's problem has been largely in software. the GPUs have been fine when the software is fine, particularly GPGPU like transcoding. what isn't fine are the staggered botched launches and poor gaming compatibility, which absolutely does require a lot of software work on a per design basis for proper support. GPUs aren't CPUs that can run entirely in software with cross compatibility over generations.
  • yeeeeman - Tuesday, May 10, 2022 - link

    Let's say I understand the supply chain issues, but if they really have great products on their hands they should send them to reviewers.
  • thestryker - Tuesday, May 10, 2022 - link

    While I certainly agree with your sentiment as I'd love to see benchmarking it doesn't really make sense for them to send devices to reviewers when it'll be another few months to get into customer hands. PC World had someone up here in Oregon visiting Intel and they got to run a handful of benches on the A370m (around RTX 3050 mobile perf) and I think that's about the best we're going to see until laptops start shipping west.
  • Calin - Tuesday, May 10, 2022 - link

    Anandtech bought one of the first 10nm laptops (it was an OEM only special sold only in China) and reviewed it. The results were... mixed to say the least.
    So, hopefully they'll manage something like this with Arc too
  • whatthe123 - Tuesday, May 10, 2022 - link

    site can't even afford to do gpu reviews anymore, i doubt they'll get an early laptop from china unless it's sponsored
  • name99 - Tuesday, May 10, 2022 - link

    Seems like the cynics among us were justified. Both about the timeline, and about the claims that the Pat Gelsinger Intel had changed and was no longer deliberately lying about timelines.

    As the Who said: Meet the new Intel, same as the old Intel.
    i4, i3, iA20, iA18...
  • onewingedangel - Tuesday, May 10, 2022 - link

    It would make sense for Alchemist to be largely OEM/SI as Intel just needs to get a product out in the wild and get real world feedback and work on improving the software side.

    I hope it's not, but I expect owners of Alchemist to be glorified beta testers.

    Intel discrete graphics are unlikely to be an enthusiast choice until Battlemage or Celestial anyway, but as long as they can make up ground gen on gen, and be price competitive there is a niche for them to fill.

    I'd imagine Intel will have to live with low margins on the GPUs for a few generations and will hide that in package deals alongside CPU, Chipset, Thunderbolt, Networking, WiFi etc.
  • cyrusfox - Wednesday, May 11, 2022 - link

    As long as it provides good media acceleration for Video/photo (adobe suite) it will find wide adoption. I am ready to replace my gt1030, I have been for 2 years now but the low end has had nothing better for a long time...
  • 29a - Tuesday, May 10, 2022 - link

    "Furthermore, that initial launch is going to be limited to the low end..."

    I'm under the impression that the "low end" is the entire product line.
  • jayfang - Wednesday, May 11, 2022 - link

    The SEC has formally cautioned Intel about making statements that affect a market and not following through on those statements. This is probably why we are seeing these "just legally qualifying" launches.

    If Intel investor reports say Q1 2022 ARC Launch we see 2 laptops with ARC that no one can purchase.

    If Intel investor reports say Q2 2022 ARC Desktop Launch we see low end devices in fast to ship to market.

    The market affected is not just gamers hoping and holding on for decent bang-for-buck, but also OEM hoping for big margins, 100M$ marketing support & stable supplies.
  • Hulk - Wednesday, May 11, 2022 - link

    This feels like Canon Lake's "launch."
  • vefivivi - Tuesday, May 17, 2022 - link

    :D
  • basketballstarsunblocked - Tuesday, May 17, 2022 - link

    https://www.basketballstarsunblocked.net/
    I'm glad I discovered this place. I will visit often.
  • Hrel - Wednesday, May 18, 2022 - link

    Really bad news, nobody's even trying to make GPU's affordable again right now. RTX 3050 being over $200 at all is just insane. That's a $149 part max.

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