AMD and Intel teaming up

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Apple have been ditching nVidia for AMD over the last few years, there is something that Apple like about AMD and i wouldn't be surprised if its a case that Intel could see the writing on the wall, that they might just lose Apple to AMD Ryzen APU's, or Apple said to Intel "find a way to use AMD Graphics IP"

Will the limit on this be cooling as for a laptop cooling two discrete chips should be noticeably easier than cooling one chip with a much higher TDP?
If these are for Apple and their thin chassis they'll need to work hard to cool these quietly I presume.
Having just the one chip simplifies the motherboard design though.

This indeed sounds like something for Apple,which means it makes the physical motherboard smaller. The whole thinner chip bit in the marketing bumpf sounds suspiciously like what AMD was saying for Polaris 11.

 

[humbug]

This indeed sounds like something for Apple,which means it makes the physical motherboard smaller. The whole thinner chip bit in the marketing bumpf sounds suspiciously like what AMD was saying for Polaris 11.

I did say when this first came to light that i though this was an Intel compromise with Apple who clearly these days want AMD's Graphics.

Intel had reached a dead end with their 'rented from nVidia' old graphics IP and Apple were probably also not happy with Intel's Goliath Iris Chips that despite their enormous size and expense were struggling to stay ahead of AMD's much smaller cheaper APU's.

Inevitably its only a matter of a short time until AMD's Integrated Graphics would leave Iris-Pro sitting in the dirt and with Zen IPC and power consumption on par with Intel Apple 'already seemingly being bowled over by their Graphics' would probably not see AMD's CPU's 'and there-in APU's' as inferior to Intel's anymore.

This works out for both, Intel get to keep their Chips inside Apple, AMD also get their chips inside those products.

 

[Rroff]

Wait weren't people claiming it would take Intel years and years to develop a multi-die interconnect and be years behind IF?

 

[Vince]

Wait weren't people claiming it would take Intel years and years to develop a multi-die interconnect and be years behind IF?

I guess that depends what they can actually do with this interconnect and just how versatile it is.

 

[humbug]

I see this as more like AMD's Heterogeneous System Architecture (HSA), which is not the same as Infinity Fabric, it is in its self is a very interesting bit of technology which sadly never took off like it deserved to. Until perhaps now...?

 

[EsaT]

Massive gamble from AMD, while its going to net them a lot of marketshare and some mindshare in the GPU sector as people naturally think "Intel is better than AMD" and most people wont understand its an Intel CPU with AMD GPU, people will just assume Intel now make good GPU's, all the while Nvidia is going to get hit in the pocket.

AMD however will need to make a way to translate this into a positive growth for them in the discrete gpu market, as i garauntee people are going to think these are Intel only Chips.

There's another win in this for AMD besides selling GPU dies.
(or getting royalty if manufactured by Intel)
You can bet these support Adaptive-Sync/Free-Sync.
And more support for it means monitors makers are likely to make more FreeSync monitors.

 

[SiDeards73]

There's another win in this for AMD besides selling GPU dies.
(or getting royalty if manufactured by Intel)
You can bet these support Adaptive-Sync/Free-Sync.
And more support for it means monitors makers are likely to make more FreeSync monitors.

True but Freesync screens already out number G-Sync by like 8-1

 

[humbug]

There's another win in this for AMD besides selling GPU dies.
(or getting royalty if manufactured by Intel)
You can bet these support Adaptive-Sync/Free-Sync.
And more support for it means monitors makers are likely to make more FreeSync monitors.

True but Freesync screens already out number G-Sync by like 8-1

 

[EsaT]

True but Freesync screens already out number G-Sync by like 8-1

Problem is that with AMD's GPU market share they're likely not selling in same ratio.
So having more PCs automatically support it makes more people likely to get one.

 

[Mik3]

These and Ryzen APU's should make PC more affordable for all which is great news for us, its fantastic having AMD back in the game as we are getting some nice progress once again

 

[AndreiD]

These and Ryzen APU's should make PC more affordable for all which is great news for us, its fantastic having AMD back in the game as we are getting some nice progress once again

I don't think you're fill these in anything but expensive iMacs or Macbook Pros. 45W Core-H and Vega with HBM2 is the opposite of affordable.
The Raven Ridge APUs will probably be cheaper, but the devices using it so far aren't exactly budget laptops either.

 

[Martini1991]

These won't be cheap products these are in.
It's obviously a win, but it's not going to have a massive market penetration. AMD's own APU will be for that.

 

[calken]

I don't think you're fill these in anything but expensive iMacs or Macbook Pros.

Which is another good thing - it places AMD in a premium brand product.

 

[4K8KW10]

Why does AMD have to share anything with Intel? This is an extremely high risk for them.
Why don't they build such a SoC with their own Zen cores?

 

[humbug]

Why does AMD have to share anything with Intel? This is an extremely high risk for them.
Why don't they build such a SoC with their own Zen cores?

They are not sharing anything with Intel.

What AMD are doing is selling Intel GPU's that Intel then glue it onto their package.

This is Intel's graphic with my own illustration.

It is simply the case that Intel want to make a product with high performance on package Graphics, so they went to AMD and said "Can we buy your graphics chips please"

 

[4K8KW10]

I have already understood what happened. But I don't understand why AMD didn't just say "Oh, no, thanks, we are going to make it on our own and sell it under the AMD brand. We need to strengthen our own brand, not yours ".

 

[humbug]

I have already understood what happened. But I don't understand why AMD didn't just say "Oh, no, thanks, we are going to make it on our own and sell it under the AMD brand. We need to strengthen our own brand, not yours ".

I did say when this first came to light that i though this was an Intel compromise with Apple who clearly these days want AMD's Graphics.

Intel had reached a dead end with their 'rented from nVidia' old graphics IP and Apple were probably also not happy with Intel's Goliath Iris Chips that despite their enormous size and expense were struggling to stay ahead of AMD's much smaller cheaper APU's.

Inevitably its only a matter of a short time until AMD's Integrated Graphics would leave Iris-Pro sitting in the dirt and with Zen IPC and power consumption on par with Intel Apple 'already seemingly being bowled over by their Graphics' would probably not see AMD's CPU's 'and there-in APU's' as inferior to Intel's anymore.

This works out for both, Intel get to keep their Chips inside Apple, AMD also get their chips inside those products.

In the early 1970's IBM used CPU's from both AMD and Intel specifically because IBM understood the pitfalls of a monopoly, perhaps because Apple are equally wise or perhaps just because Apple like Intel's CPU's and AMD's GPU's and want them both that AMD and Intel agreed to partner up for this.

AMD will still be competing with Intel's APU's outside of this product type, there is no reason why AMD can't also compete with the same product type, they have already been making them for years, the chips in Consoles are like this.

 

[Steampunk]

I have already understood what happened. But I don't understand why AMD didn't just say "Oh, no, thanks, we are going to make it on our own and sell it under the AMD brand. We need to strengthen our own brand, not yours ".

Same reason Intel sell chips to Apple, or Qualcomm to Samsung. It's how AMD make money ie, make stuff and sell it to companies who put it into things they sell to people. You don't make money telling the people who want to buy your stuff you won't supply goods and they have to go to your competitors.

 

[Davedree]

Same reason Intel sell chips to Apple, or Qualcomm to Samsung. It's how AMD make money ie, make stuff and sell it to companies who put it into things they sell to people. You don't make money telling the people who want to buy your stuff you won't supply goods and they have to go to your competitors.

Until those companies then become self sufficient and design and manufacture their own soc's. But cross patents and licences are the only thing stopping them at the moment. Look at Apple already on the pathway to building their own mobile soc's inhouse and eventually Google will too. Look at the status of Imagination Technologies (their original igp provider), and how it's the relationship has changed. This could happen to AMD in a similar future. Look at the relationship of business buyouts and you can see what intel wants to achieve ( they bought altera for a reason). A lot of this dates back to Larabee, it's why I hope AMD are able to think out the box, and protect their ip for the future.

 

[4K8KW10]

Intel isn't simply an AMD enemy, it's an enemy because of which AMD is still close to and haven't escaped the threat of bankrupcy.

Remember all those anti-competitive practices Intel have been using during past all these years just to damage and hurt to the maximum AMD.
Why will AMD suddenly forget all these and join the dirty games?