Reader Mail for July Loose Ends
🕑 Added 2024-08-01 22:53:47 +0000 UTCYou all know the drill! Write-in below with your thoughts and questions regarding the subjects of this past month, and what you are looking forward to in August! As a reminder, we have seen the following developments over the past 4 weeks:
AMD Releases FSR 3.1
AMD Releases AFMF 2.0
News that 8+32 Arrow Lake is Cancelled
Meteor Lake Refresh & Panther Lake Details were Leaked
Intel's Raptor Lake Instability issue blew up catastrophically
AMD Launched Strix
AMD Ryzen 9000 was delayed, (according to MLID) due to Validation Failures
AMD Released Good Q2 2024 Earnings
Intel Released Disastrous Q2 2024 Earnings, with plans to layoff 15% of its workforce...
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Comments
TechnoLadz
Well, 15600K doesn't exist, it's Core Ultra :p
TechnoLadz
My questions for today: 1. If AMD undercuts (or outperforms) the 5070 more than expected with RDNA 4; how would Nvidia respond. 2. Will you have a full leak covering the run down of the Blackwell dies like you did for Ampere and Ada? 3. Which upcoming CPU new generations are you most excited about?
Ronigan
A while ago, you mentioned something about how some future generation of consoles might have literal RAM as storage. I was wondering if you can divulge anything on what kind of storage technology you were referring to.
Aliasing Anonymous
Do you think that the 5090 will be cut down more than the 4090, and if so by how much? Would they really clip 2 GPCs (>17%) just for segmentation with the workstation cards (which will have more bandwidth this generation)? I can’t imagine they need to cut it down more than Ada on a mature node, especially when they can always sell lower binned chips to China.
Aliasing Anonymous
I think if they have confidence the foundry will become a market leader in the next few years with stuff like BSD (which, correctly or not, I think they do believe), the foundry business could be too important financially to spin off unless they’re preparing to sell off the rest of the business - I don’t think we’re there, at least for the near to mid future.
Aliasing Anonymous
What’s the estimated time/date for this?
Kiln God
Given Intel is clearly in financial distress, how do you think this will affect Intel's sales by segment?
Baza's Sami Note II
Given AMD now finds its new cpus occupying a server role without competition from Intel. Did this contribute the need for higher standard QC checks than previously anticipated?
Chris Rijk
Any updates on sales of the X Elite and Strix Point? Any idea how OEMs and retailers feel about them relative to Meteor Lake?
B. Fish
Given all the recent problems with raptor lake & refresh & the odds that there are some number of laptops affected, what have you heard from oems around hesitation to adopt arrow lake/some volume shift to AMD?
B. Fish
Strix looks interesting but in phawx's initial testing of the igpu, it didn't seem to scale with additional wattage. Given the lack of apps and the general state of AI, how well do you think strix would perform replacing the npu with a block of infinity cache?
Chris Rijk
Intel has been trying to turn things around for many years now. Do you think that they have and we just have to wait for the products from the “new and improved Intel” to work their way through their multi-year development cycles, or do you think they still need fundamental reform?
Aliasing Anonymous
Any additional info on the Blackwell performance leaks (5090 +48%). I’m definitely not a leaker but I did speak with an NVIDIA source whom I know (usually tight lipped) admitted that 48% uplift “roughly on point”.
Bryan P.
Intel has been struggling since 10 nanometer. With things like specter, meltdown, whatever they will nickname this latest event. Do you think espionage is a possibility? I could see China or Russia infiltrating Intel just as we did with Irans nuclear program? They could steal our IP and slow us down.
Dave Scholze
About Battlemage: Do you think it would be wise for Intel to release a desktop variant that has an okay performance with tons of VRam for a good price? What's the amount of VRam at which price where it would be interesting? Imagine a 700$ card with 48GB. It could be perfect for intense video-editing, large-scene rendering, ai-training etc.
QuickJumper
From day 1 it was hard to understand Intel's IDM strategy. Like sure invest in capacity but be realistic that you are not the leader in manufacturing anymore. Instead this is very similar to what happened to AMD. They bought lots of fabs, released a not so good generations like bulldozer and didn't almost have enough money to weather the storm.
AI-Soldier789
Now that Intel announced they will cut staff across the globe. Will that impact the competetifness of Intel in the future? As AMD wants to grow a lot in the coming years could they pick up the fired staff?
MultiNati
Do you think the oxidation issue on Raptor Lake will impact the Intel Foundry business in the future? Intel recently posted on reddit saying that the issue was identified in late 2022. It seems scummy to me that it took this long for them to disclose it and if I’m a potential foundry customer I would be looking at TSMC more.
TMCPayton
Howdy, Any word about Intel HEDT? Haven't heard anything about Fish Hawk Falls updates in a long time.
Mark Smith
is Alder Lake safe to buy and use?
Nathan Schied
Am I remembering right that Dan was teaching his dog to find truffles, but it would only go after the ones that he hid? If so, my girlfriend said that his problem is probably that it's probably just smelling him, not the truffle.
Woody Chang
Hi Tom, assuming that Arrow Lake isn't some Zen2 moment for Intel, how many generations of "just executing" will Intel need to do before the public starts to trust them again? Right now, it might seem like never unless there is a change up top or some major public reassurance that the Raptor Lake situation will be made right with exchanges/RMAs
Chris Rijk
Intel is about to take an axe to R&D - what do you think will happen to Arc? I doubt they’ll officially announce its demise anytime soon as that would undermine Lunar Lake and Panther Lake.
Kinihun25
Hey Tom do you think Intel need to price Arrow Lake competitively to get people to buy it? Right now I'm using Raptor Lake and it Zen 5 3D put vcache on both 8 Cores I'm really thinking about switching. Unless Intel can come out with a Core 9 cpu that is $600, better than standard Zen 5 and atleast within 10% of efficiency, I'm switching because the 9950X 3D could be the best gaming chip, great multi-core performance and using almost no energy
TMCPayton
Given Intel's stability woes, how does that affect your personal recommendations of ArrowLake and other soon to release Intel architectures?
TMCPayton
Where do you expect Meteor Lake Refresh efficiency to land? What would it take for you to recommend it?
TMCPayton
In the BS 266 wrap up, you suggested that the Arrow Lake overclockable i5 will be $350 or probably $400. Would you wager an i5-15600K that the price will be above $350?
Nicholas Buckner
Is everyone on the same page at Intel? referencing: https://www.reddit.com/r/intel/comments/1ehv0v8/extended_warranty_update_on_13th14th_stability/ https://x.com/JayzTwoCents/status/1819056730413977898
3-Valdion Dreemur
So this is a bit of a conspiracy theory, but do you think it might be possible that the reason behind Meteor's lake and the future gens' rebranding might be because Intel saw the writing on the wall that raptor lake would start having a LOT of issues, and rebranded the new stuff in advance so that the new generations of CPUs wouldn't be linked back to the old? Like they could have left Meteor Lake with the I branding, but since Meteor Lake is Arrow lake's predecessor they might not have wanted people to link Arrow and Lunar Lake back to the mess that was the I CPUs if they had left Meteor Lake as one.
kjm015
What happens to Intel if Arrow Lake flops? Does the company have the capital to be able to weather through a generation of weak sales following these Raptor Lake failures, or is Arrow Lake really going to be their last hope for redemption?
shea
why do Intel and AMD seem to have a harder time making CPUs than NVIDIA and AMD making GPUs?
Early80sPC-Gamer
Hello Tom. Do you know is the NPU and the IGPU on the AMD APUs all using the same 16 gig block of memory? Does that mean if you have a big neural process your games can't work?
Early80sPC-Gamer
Hello Tom, do you think Sony kind of killed the PS VR2 by not having Ace combat and Star wars X-Wing squadron and other VR games updated to work with that? I have a PS VR2 and I have like two or three games because to me nothing really looks that interesting. I even bought a Ace combat knockoff because flying games are some of the best things you can do in VR. I just find it a shame that it's getting abandoned
Sakosha
Bestbuy kind of confirmed your data on Zen5 Desktop CPU pricing. And given the delayed release, what are your expectations of week 1 supply?
Alex Smith
Hi Tom, with Intel announcing layoffs 3yrs in a row now, what's the sentiment like inside the company. While Nvidia is going to be dealing with the issue of its managers becoming millionaires, Intels stock has as of writing in AH plummeted to a 11yr low. Surely the writing is on the wall for Pat
Sakosha
By steps I mean building new fabs, naming them Intel Foundry, disclosing separate financials etc
Sakosha
Another question is if Intel is seriously considering splitting its Foundry. They've made a number of steps towards that goal over the last few years, so may be it's just a matter of when, not if.
Sakosha
My napkin math suggests that 1 million CPUs RMAd = 300 million in losses. They sold 45mn CPUs in 2023 alone, so the total losses could reach billions
Sakosha
Intel has reported huge layoffs and catastrophic financial results today, but there was no mention of the RPL instability and associated losses. For some reason this news has not yet reached corporate media. How long do you think they'll succeed in hiding it from the Board and shareholder?
Jen-Hsun Huang
I will give Intel 1 million, no, one billion dollars for an x86 license. In Nvidia stock.
Intel FanBoy
Do you think Pat will keep his job for much longer after Intel disastrous results?