A Discussion on Intel's Graphics Potential

[mjwicks2]

Ok so my GPU just broke and all I have is my HD 630 on my 7700k. I fired up GPUz to see some specs on it and it only has 24 stream processors?? I know that is not any at all, but for what it is, the iGPU can run almost anything, at least at lowest settings. Its a powerful circuit for the amount of shaders it has. What if Intel threw together 1024 in a chip? Or created a flagship with 5120? With how well 24 does, wouldn't that make for an insanely well performing gpu??

 

[Hellfire13]

They have heard your call... https://segmentnext.com/2018/01/08/intel-coffee-lake-h-amd-radeon-rx-vega/

 

[k1114]

That's not intel gpus, that's amd. He means if intel made higher end dgpus with their own tech.

It's actually 24 execution units which is a cluster of cores like a compute unit for amd or sm for nvidia. Comparably it's 192 shaders equivalent of stream procs or cuda cores but what makes a "core" is up to debate and is different. And with differences in architectures, you can't really compare it to other number of stream procs or cudas. It can be ignored like other gpu specs when you only worry about actual performance.

As power efficiency to performance goes, I think they do really well but from the performance difference from the iris pro 580 (576 cores) it scales horribly in performance and is probably why they don't go higher themselves and went with amd.

 

[dontlistentome]

I think Intel hasn't focused on making powerful integrated graphics because why would they?

People who want serious graphics performance will be adding a videocard, so those customers will not spend extra on an Intel CPU just because it has great integrated graphics.

People who don't need a discrete videocard for gaming don't need an especially powerful integrated graphics solution either.

So there is, at best, this very small niche of customers who want powerful graphics but want it in integrated form for some reason. And don't think there's enough of them to make it profitable for Intel.

 

[Hellfire13]

He means if intel made higher end dgpus with their own tech.

Ohh snap

 

[k1114]

The fact that they are putting in higher end amd gpus prove that igpus being more powerful is actually a high enough demand. Or the fact that they even turned to amd at all instead of making their own should kill off that theory. Intel and amd partnering? Who would have thought that would happen? Think of mobile, soc, laptops, and sff. These are becoming much more prevalent form factors as they become powerful enough that most people will never buy anything bigger. To a lesser extent, mitx gaming builds could start to get into it as well but similarly, people want smaller.

But they're not going to be able to fit what he's talking about into a cpu. 5120 cores would have to be a dgpu. Even if they fit a mid end 130w gpu, that's getting to the fx 9000s tdp and we all know how well that played out. Not just heat issues but mobos had issues powering them. The only conclusion as I mentioned was dgpus.

If they could compete, any business would be an idiot not to jump in. Especially with ai and deep learning growing as it is, gpus are doing more compute work and at a higher power efficiency than cpus could ever dream of. Xeon phi isn't a cpu or gpu but that's the best intel has to compete and that pales in comparison to performance and efficiency.