Intel announces retirement of Pat Gelsinger • Hacker News Board

Re: Intel announces retirement of Pat Gelsinger

#221

Post by bee_rider » Mon, Dec 02, 2024, 3:29 PM UTC

CuriousCosmic wrote: post #127

bee_rider wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nvidia makes a lot more sense than AMD; it is better for the market (preserving some competition in x86), and at least Intel does something Nvidia doesn’t.

What do they do that Nvidia doesn't (and that Nvidia would care about)? They already do networking, photonics, GPUs, high speed interconnects, and CPUs. They are planning on selling their FPGAs (the Altera acquisition) to Lattice. The only things left are their fab ops, thunderbolt/usbc, wifi, and ble. Their fab ops would take over a decade of heavy investment to catch up to TSMC or Samsung and idk if even Nvidia is…

I mean, ARM designs have had some wins lately, but x86 still does quite well in single-thread performance, right? Excluding Apple, because they are magic—Amazon, Ampere, these ARM CPUs make a reasonable pitch for applications that use lots of cores well, but that isn’t every application.

Re: Intel announces retirement of Pat Gelsinger

#222

Post by Wytwwww » Mon, Dec 02, 2024, 3:30 PM UTC

cogman10 wrote: post #145

etempleton wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They would have at least 5 years to figure it out before ARM becomes viable on desktop assuming there continues to be movement in that direction. There is so little incentive to move away from x86 right now. The latest Intel mobile processors address the efficiency issues and prove that x86 can be efficient enough for laptops. IT departments are not going to stop buying x86 processors until they absolutely are forced…

> There is so little incentive to move away from x86 right now. > IT departments are not going to stop buying x86 processors until they absolutely are forced to. IT departments are buying arm laptops, Apple's. And there is an incentive to switch, cost. If you are in AWS, you can save a pretty penny by adopting graviton processors. Further, the only thing stopping handhelds from being arm machines is poor x86 emulatio…

> handhelds from being arm machines is poor x86 emulation

Also Qualcomm's GPUs are pretty shit (compared to Intel's and AMDs or Apple's)

Re: Intel announces retirement of Pat Gelsinger

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Post by osnium123 » Mon, Dec 02, 2024, 3:31 PM UTC

etempleton wrote: post #64

I feel like this is a mistake. Pat's strategy is aggressive but what the company needs. Intel's stock is jumping at this announcement, but I look at it as a bad signal for Intel 18a. If 18a was looking to be a smash hit then I don't think Pat gets retired. If 18a is a success then it is an even more short-sighted decision by the board. What this likely means is two-fold: 1. Intel 18a is being delayed further and/or t…

The mistake Pat Gelsinger made was that he put his faith in the American manufacturing workforce. Very sad.

Re: Intel announces retirement of Pat Gelsinger

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Post by etempleton » Mon, Dec 02, 2024, 3:31 PM UTC

xbar wrote: post #153

phkahler wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> If 18a is not ready I think the best case scenario for Intel is a merger with AMD. Aside from the x86 monopoly that would create, I don't think Intel has much of value to AMD at this point other than the fabs (which aren't delivering). IMHO if Intel is failing, let them fail and others will buy the pieces in bankruptcy. This would probably benefit several other companies that could use 22nm and up fab capacity and…

I'd like to address the aside for completeness' sake. An x86 monopoly in the late 80s was a thing, but not now. Today, there are sufficient competitive chip architectures with cross-compatible operating systems and virtualization that x86 does not represent control of the computing market in a manner that should prevent such a merger: ARM licensees, including the special case of Apple Silicon, Snapdragon, NVIDIA SOCs…

This is all very true and why I think a merger between AMD and Intel is even possible. Nvidia and Intel is also a possible merger, but I actually think there is more regulatory concern with NVIDIA and how big and dominant they are becoming.

Re: Intel announces retirement of Pat Gelsinger

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Post by Workaccount2 » Mon, Dec 02, 2024, 3:31 PM UTC

tokioyoyo wrote: post #156

Workaccount2 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually did email Deepak Patil (head of Intel Graphics division) about this around a year ago, haha. Never did get a response though. It is something that is easy to miss if you are just looking at typical business strategy and finances. A high memory consumer GPU would undercut their server GPUs, which are presumably higher margin intended golden geese. It's easy to see them chasing server markets and "gamers" be…

> It's an extremely powerful position to have every at-home AI geek's setup to be bound to using intel cards So, incredibly small market share while your competitors already have the first-mover advantage and nailed down the ecosystem? With no data backing it up, I think, graphics cards for local LLM needs is not really on demand. Even for gaming it’s probably more attractive, but then again, that’s not even where th…

The market share is incredibly small but also incredibly well aimed.

The people learning how to do local LLMs will be the people directing build out of on-prem transformers for small-midsize companies. The size of the market is irrelevant here, it's who is in that market and the power they will have that is extremely relevant.

Re: Intel announces retirement of Pat Gelsinger

#226

Post by colejohnson66 » Mon, Dec 02, 2024, 3:32 PM UTC

tpm wrote: post #144

bee_rider wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another nice thing—it looked like Intel was lagging AMD in PCIe lane counts, until somewhat recently. I suspect selling GPUs has put them in the headspace of thinking of PCIe lanes as a real figure of merit.

AMD AM5 are also not great at having enough PCIe lanes, hence at most one connected PCIe5 x16 GPU, if you need more it's x8 for 2 GPUs and so on, and that's before we connect fast M2 storage, fast USB4 slots etc. If you need more PCIe lanes, you have to buy a Threadripper or Epyc and that's easily 10 times the price for the whole system.

PCIe lanes and DDR channels take up the most pins on a CPU connector (ignoring power). The common solution (for desktops) is to have a newest generation protocol (5) at the CPU level, then use the chipset to fan out more lanes at a lower generation (4).

Re: Intel announces retirement of Pat Gelsinger

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Post by xyst » Mon, Dec 02, 2024, 3:32 PM UTC

Pat was at the helm for just a few years and has already been sent to the guillotine.

Maybe it isn’t wise that the USA dump billions into private companies that can’t even get their own house in order.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the next CEO installed by the board will be hellbent on prepping INTC for sale. A few of the board of directors of INTC are from private investment firms.

Re: Intel announces retirement of Pat Gelsinger

#228

Post by etempleton » Mon, Dec 02, 2024, 3:33 PM UTC

orenlindsey wrote: post #173

etempleton wrote: post #64

I feel like this is a mistake. Pat's strategy is aggressive but what the company needs. Intel's stock is jumping at this announcement, but I look at it as a bad signal for Intel 18a. If 18a was looking to be a smash hit then I don't think Pat gets retired. If 18a is a success then it is an even more short-sighted decision by the board. What this likely means is two-fold: 1. Intel 18a is being delayed further and/or t…

A lot of people on this thread are underestimating how much of a hold Intel has on the chips industry. In my experience, Intel is synonymous with computer chip for the average person. Most people wouldn't be able to tell you what AMD does differently, they'd just say they're a knockoff Intel. Technologically, both companies are neck and neck. But for the average person, it's not even close.

People miss this. A lot of people will only buy Intel. Businesses and IT departments rarely buy AMD, not just out of brand loyalty, but because of the software and hardware features Intel deploys that are catered to the business market.

Re: Intel announces retirement of Pat Gelsinger

#229

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Dec 02, 2024, 3:33 PM UTC

NKosmatos wrote: post #47

mythz wrote: post #29

Well their stock is already in the dumps, they can't do much worse than they already have been. Divesting from their discrete GPUs just as they were starting to become a viable value option was one of their most recent asinine decisions. No idea why they didn't try test the market with a high RAM 64GB+ card before bowing out to see how well they'd do. Nvidia's too busy printing money to add more RAM to their consumer…

Exactly, I was discussing this with a friend the other day. I'm sure there must be a market for high RAM GPUs, even if they're not as fast as NVIDIA GPUs.

[deleted]

Re: Intel announces retirement of Pat Gelsinger

#230

Post by Night_Thastus » Mon, Dec 02, 2024, 3:33 PM UTC

hbfdhfdhadfhnfa wrote: post #4

This is not good. We already know what happened when CFO took over. It was a time when Intel totaly lost control. They are gona get bought for penies. OMG Instead of saying to AMD they will be in the rearview mirror, they should have been paranoid. Not do stupid GPUs. and destroy others where it mattered

The GPUs aren't a stupid idea. Right now Nvidia basically controls the market and has totally abandoned the lower/mid range end.

Intel has made vast improvements even within their first generation of dedicated desktop cards. They will likely never compete with cards like a 4080/4090, but they may be great options for people on a budget. Helps put pressure on AMD to be better as well.