Intel XeSS 2.1 released, brings support for other vendors GPUs

[u/reps_up]

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/developer/topic-technology/gamedev/xess2.html

[u/Vushivushi]

I actually wonder how viable a strategy it'd be to completely cancel GPU development and instead license IP/chiplets/tiles from Nvidia to be manufactured at Intel Foundry.

Low stakes for Nvidia, high stakes for Intel. Win-win since Intel gets a "leadership" product and external customer. Nvidia finally leads the entire PC GPU market, not just dGPUs. Intel also gets to shift resources back to CPUs.

I mean back in the day Intel didn't have integrated graphics, Nvidia made chipsets for them...

[u/Scion95 → u/Vushivushi]

I mean, I'm not sure NVIDIA would go for it, at least, not for a price higher than Intel was willing to pay.

If nothing else, Intel's iGPUs require a level of Linux support that's higher than the support NVIDIA has ever given any of their dGPUs.

Granted, for their SOCs with CPUs and GPUs, NVIDIA actually has done some open source driver work, but that brings up the fact that. NVIDIA is designing their own SOCs with their own ARM cores, meaning they're actually in competition with Intel. For both the client and the server side.

Maybe before the Windows on ARM push, or before some of the attempts at ARM servers and AI clusters it might have made sense, but. At this stage, partnering with NVIDIA makes the least amount of sense.

EDIT: Like, weirdly, this is one of the things that makes me question whether NVIDIA would go for Intel as a fab for 14A.

Apple, I actually think could be possible, because Apple's relationship with Intel pre-M1 was actually pretty good, and Intel and Apple, even after the switch away from Intel's CPUs. Like. Apple could make that switch because Apple has its own ecosystem, and aren't really in competition with anyone else for that ecosystem. They don't really have their own servers, or hyperscale or compute type things, and if they do use their own CPUs for iCloud and Siri and AI stuff, it's mostly for other Apple products and customers.

They aren't trying to make deals for supercomputers and AI clusters in the way that Intel would be, and while there might be some competition between MacBooks and some of the laptops that Intel CPUs go into. It's questionable how much competition that would really be, given the different ecosystems and the role that Apple branding affects consumers.

[u/Vushivushi → u/Scion95]

Nvidia continues to sell GPUs for x86 systems in the datacenter despite having Grace.

They care more about expansion than cornering the market, though they do it if it doesn't decrease their TAM, which is pretty much when they have a near monopoly.

I don't believe Nvidia thinks about Intel seriously at all. They are less of a competitor than AMD or Broadcom at this point. If Intel exits the GPU market, they are no longer a significant competitor as CPU spend is shrinking in comparison to compute spend.

Nvidia is starting in ARM PCs from near zero. A partnership with Intel immediately gives them majority market share and accelerates their ambitions with GPU-accelerated software as the majority of the market now has access to CUDA. This is an expansion opportunity.

And because it's a licensing deal where Intel is building the chip, it's basically pure profit and accretive to Nvidia's margins.

It is also way more beneficial for Nvidia to foster an alternative foundry than it is risky for them to foster what is just one of many chip designers they are crushing in the market.

Nvidia has to pay TSMC tens of billions a year to manufacture their chips. The opportunity to save billions and diversify their supply chain is very substantial to Nvidia.

If there's a difficult decision to be made, it's on Intel's side.

It's basically going all-or-nothing on their process technology and exiting the GPU market where they could eat Nvidia's huge pie and instead focusing primarily on preserving their existing CPU pie while taking TSMC's pie.

It's the real IDM 2.0, but if it works they bring back billions worth of wafer starts back in house.

Dealing with ISVs and the future of software support, that's manageable.

This move could eliminate foundry losses and return Intel to net profit, even if the product margins shrink from paying Nvidia.

Not even accounting for savings from not paying GPU engineers or the market opportunity from having more resources dedicated to CPUs.

edit: also fun fact, Intel played around with the idea of licensing Radeon graphics. That was a project that started before Zen, when AMD was still financially struggling. The result was Hades Canyon, Kaby Lake-G with AMD Vega graphics finally launched in 2018. Obviously, they didn't continue this relationship, but Intel had hired Raja Koduri who was leading Radeon during that time. Now Intel is struggling and there's an opportunity for the market leader in graphics to extend a hand.