Double posting in case he doesn't see it.
What exactly does this mean? An APU is just a cpu with an IGP. And for awhile both companies have had IGPs in most of their cpus. What exactly is shifting here?
Well they aren't selling too well. And I think I know why. Most of the applications people use rely entirely on cpu speed. Only a small set of computer users are "gamers". And most gamers won't touch IGPs with a 10 foot pole due to their performance still being abysmal compared to discrete solutions. And for everything else having a fast IGP doesn't make a difference. So they end up having a product that's only really marketable to a small subset of a small subset of users (low end gamers).
This is why AMD is pushing so hard to get developers to use the GPU for general purpose applications. They can't compete with Intel in cpu performance anymore so this is their only chance at turning things around.
Well that experience didn't really result from this project. It resulted from the research that they were doing anyways. Long before they were approached for designs by microsoft and sony.
They were really the only logical choice this time around. They're the only company right now that can provide both x86 support and a fast GPU on one chip. Every other ISA except POWER and IA64 have been abandoned for high performance cpus now. Both of which are only suitable for servers, offer no IGP support, and are controlled by companies that don't offer flexible designs.
Unless HSA really takes off in a big way I don't think APUs with GPU emphasis are a great idea for PCs. It has a very awkward position in the market right now. On consoles they make a lot of sense since consoles don't need good cpu performance. So that die area and power budget can be used for a bigger GPU instead.
Mantle doesn't have a whole lot to do with this.
For games yes. Though lately the gap between the two is pretty small. And in fact ever since Haswell Intels top of the line IGP outperforms AMDs across the board.
For the longest time Intel has barely dedicated any budget to IGPs. They were considered unimportant to end users so why bother? Which is part of the reason why they have historically sucked. In the last few years though their R&D budget for GPU technology has been tripling annually. They're getting ready to put more of an emphasis on them in the future in case AMD is right about the shift to GPGPU. If this continues in a few years Intels IGP drivers and performance could actually be better than AMDs. They certainly have the money. Right now the biggest thing holding them back in my opinion is actually the quality of their drivers, not the performance of the IGPs. The performance they're putting out right now is very competitive but their drivers still suck compared to AMD.
AMD has found itself in the position of having an idea ready in the form of a product and trying to push the market to adopt it in order to be successful (pulling an apple as I call it). While Intel seems to be taking the more conservative "wait and see" approach and adapting to the market as it changes. At least that's how I see it.
Where have you been? Haswell and the HD 5000 are both already out.
Darkeox Wrote:AMD is progressively shifting their CPU business to APU,
What exactly does this mean? An APU is just a cpu with an IGP. And for awhile both companies have had IGPs in most of their cpus. What exactly is shifting here?
Darkeox Wrote:as they saw that APU can be quite attractive for your typical casual gamer who wants to watch HD stuff and do more usual stuff with his computer. He/She wants something that doesn't cost too much but gives room for improvement and allow him/her to play BF 3 / Dota / LoL / CoD / WoW at medium settings possibly with some shiny effects without loosing too much FPS. An 140$ A10-6800k can do this for them just fine, and I think that even Intel understood the huge potential that those APU solutions, that look bastardised for people who build gaming rigs, can be towards casual gamers market. When you buy something like that, it's clearly not to play Crysis 3 (even at low) or Metro LL. So I think those systems can take over the regular CPU+ dedicated GPU provided that they continue to improve. Thus they could very well, just as they owned the low-midrange GPU market, snarf the low-mid-range CPU market.
Well they aren't selling too well. And I think I know why. Most of the applications people use rely entirely on cpu speed. Only a small set of computer users are "gamers". And most gamers won't touch IGPs with a 10 foot pole due to their performance still being abysmal compared to discrete solutions. And for everything else having a fast IGP doesn't make a difference. So they end up having a product that's only really marketable to a small subset of a small subset of users (low end gamers).
This is why AMD is pushing so hard to get developers to use the GPU for general purpose applications. They can't compete with Intel in cpu performance anymore so this is their only chance at turning things around.
Darkeox Wrote:Which is why they positionning themselves on the console market doesn't mean they abandon or give less consideration to CPU. Certainly there's money, but there's also the experience of building systems where CPU & GPU get more and more close to each other and where software can speak more directly and more easily with GPU for stuff that goes on on display.
Well that experience didn't really result from this project. It resulted from the research that they were doing anyways. Long before they were approached for designs by microsoft and sony.
They were really the only logical choice this time around. They're the only company right now that can provide both x86 support and a fast GPU on one chip. Every other ISA except POWER and IA64 have been abandoned for high performance cpus now. Both of which are only suitable for servers, offer no IGP support, and are controlled by companies that don't offer flexible designs.
Unless HSA really takes off in a big way I don't think APUs with GPU emphasis are a great idea for PCs. It has a very awkward position in the market right now. On consoles they make a lot of sense since consoles don't need good cpu performance. So that die area and power budget can be used for a bigger GPU instead.
Darkeox Wrote:Even the Mantle API seems a push into that direction.
Mantle doesn't have a whole lot to do with this.
Darkeox Wrote:However, I still believe Intel APU by themselves still have some ground to cover before they can become as attractive as AMD APUs are performance/$ wise.
For games yes. Though lately the gap between the two is pretty small. And in fact ever since Haswell Intels top of the line IGP outperforms AMDs across the board.
For the longest time Intel has barely dedicated any budget to IGPs. They were considered unimportant to end users so why bother? Which is part of the reason why they have historically sucked. In the last few years though their R&D budget for GPU technology has been tripling annually. They're getting ready to put more of an emphasis on them in the future in case AMD is right about the shift to GPGPU. If this continues in a few years Intels IGP drivers and performance could actually be better than AMDs. They certainly have the money. Right now the biggest thing holding them back in my opinion is actually the quality of their drivers, not the performance of the IGPs. The performance they're putting out right now is very competitive but their drivers still suck compared to AMD.
AMD has found itself in the position of having an idea ready in the form of a product and trying to push the market to adopt it in order to be successful (pulling an apple as I call it). While Intel seems to be taking the more conservative "wait and see" approach and adapting to the market as it changes. At least that's how I see it.
Darkeox Wrote:If I remember correctly, a 3770k + HD 4000 was performing in-game a (tiny) bit worse than the A8-3850 (2.5-6 Ghz + 6550), so depending on games they might be on-par (of course, this is casual gamer stuff : we don't want HBAO, MSAA x8, V-Sync or TressFX, and we play preferably at 720p). That was like over a year ago, and you can already see that we're not really in the same price category, yet the delivered performance for the application that interest us is roughly the same. Well if you consider the power of the CPU itself, of course it would cost more. But the thing here is as a self-contained casual gaming solution, the AMD APU wins by far, and since then we've got the A10. I don't know how things went for Haswell, and I hear Intel are planning for HD 5000 and stuff but right now, if I wanted a ~300$ rig that do usual stuff + being able to play some new games at low-medium and knew that I wouldn't be touching it for the next 2-3 years, I'd go AMD without a doubt.
Where have you been? Haswell and the HD 5000 are both already out.
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-Ron Swanson
"I shall be a good politician, even if it kills me. Or if it kills anyone else for that matter. "
-Mark Antony