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Intel Arc Pro B50 GPU Launched at $349 for Compact Workstations

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Re: Intel Arc Pro B50 GPU Launched at $349 for Compact Workstations

#171

Post by pjmlp »

keyringlight wrote: post #169
anthk wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember UE1 being playable even software mode, such as the first Deus EX. Now, I think the Surreal Engine (UE1 reimplementation) needs damn GL 3.3 (if not 4.5 and Vulkan) to play games I used to play in an Athlon. Now I can't use surreal to Play DX on my legacy n270 netbook with GL 2.1... something that was more than enough to play the game at 800x600 with everything turned on and much more. A good thing is that I…

UE1 was in the timeframe that 3D acceleration was only starting to get adopted, and IIRC from some interview Epic continued with a software option for UT2003/2004 (licensed pixomatic?) because they found out a lot of players were still playing their games on systems where full GPUs weren't always available, such as laptops. I know this is going back to Intel's Larrabee where they tried it, but I'd be real interested…

One possible way would be to revisit such ideas while using AVX-512, the surviving pieces out of Larrabee.

Re: Intel Arc Pro B50 GPU Launched at $349 for Compact Workstations

#172

Post by epolanski »

fredoralive wrote: post #105
mythz wrote: post #73

Really confused why the Intel and AMD both continue to struggle and yet still refuse to offer what Nvidia wont, i.e. high ram consumer GPUs. I'd much prefer paying 3x cost for 3x VRAM (48GB/$1047), 6x cost for 6x VRAM (96GB/$2094), 12x cost for 12x VRAM (192GB/$4188), etc. They'd sell like hotcakes and software support would quickly improve. At 16GB I'd still prefer to pay a premium for NVidia GPUs given its superior…

Because the market of people who want huge RAM GPUs for home AI tinkering is basically about 3 Hacker News posters. Who probably won’t buy one because it doesn’t support CUDA. PS5 has something like 16GB unified RAM, and no game is going to really push much beyond that in VRAM use, we don’t really get Crysis style system crushers anymore.

I really doubt your claim considering how many people I've seen buy 5k Macbooks Pros with 48+ GB of ram for local inference.

500$ 32GB consumer GPU is an obvious best seller.

Thus let's call it how it is: they don't want to cannibalize their higher end GPUs.

Re: Intel Arc Pro B50 GPU Launched at $349 for Compact Workstations

#173

Post by pjmlp »

epolanski wrote: post #172
fredoralive wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the market of people who want huge RAM GPUs for home AI tinkering is basically about 3 Hacker News posters. Who probably won’t buy one because it doesn’t support CUDA. PS5 has something like 16GB unified RAM, and no game is going to really push much beyond that in VRAM use, we don’t really get Crysis style system crushers anymore.

I really doubt your claim considering how many people I've seen buy 5k Macbooks Pros with 48+ GB of ram for local inference. 500$ 32GB consumer GPU is an obvious best seller. Thus let's call it how it is: they don't want to cannibalize their higher end GPUs.

Since I never used a laptop that was more than 2 000 euros, what a great set of salaries.

Here is a better idea what to do with all that money,

https://themarcooffset.com/

Re: Intel Arc Pro B50 GPU Launched at $349 for Compact Workstations

#174

Post by IshKebab »

jlei523 wrote: post #107
wewewedxfgdf wrote: post #22

The new CEO of Intel has said that Intel is giving up competing with Nvidia. Why would you bother with any Intel product with an attitude like that, gives zero confidence in the company. What business is Intel in, if not competing with Nvidia and AMD. Is it giving up competing with AMD too?

The new CEO of Intel has said that Intel is giving up competing with Nvidia. No, he said they're giving up competing against Nvidia in training. Instead, he said Intel will focus on inference. That's the correct call in my opinion. Training is far more complex and will span multi data centers soon. Intel is too far behind. Inference is much simpler and likely a bigger market going forward.

I disagree - training enormous LLMs is super complex and requires a data centre... But most research is not done at that scale. If you want researchers to use your hardware at scale you also have to make it so they can spend a few grand and do small scale research with one GPU on their desktop.

That's how you get things like good software support in AI frameworks.

Re: Intel Arc Pro B50 GPU Launched at $349 for Compact Workstations

#175

Post by HelloNurse »

daemonologist wrote: post #77
mythz wrote: post #73

Really confused why the Intel and AMD both continue to struggle and yet still refuse to offer what Nvidia wont, i.e. high ram consumer GPUs. I'd much prefer paying 3x cost for 3x VRAM (48GB/$1047), 6x cost for 6x VRAM (96GB/$2094), 12x cost for 12x VRAM (192GB/$4188), etc. They'd sell like hotcakes and software support would quickly improve. At 16GB I'd still prefer to pay a premium for NVidia GPUs given its superior…

This card does have double the VRAM of the more expensive Nvidia competitor (the A1000, which has 8 GB), but I take your point that it doesn't feel like quite enough to justify giving up the Nvidia ecosystem. The memory bandwidth is also... not great. They also announced a 24 GB B60 and a double-GPU version of the same (saves you physical slots), but it seems like they don't have a release date yet (?).

They don't have a release date yet because they need to see sales results to commit to such a new product.

Re: Intel Arc Pro B50 GPU Launched at $349 for Compact Workstations

#176

Post by pjmlp »

anthk wrote: post #166
pjmlp wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone that started on 8 bit computing, Tim Sweeny is right the Electron garbage culture when applied to Unreal 5 is one of the reasons so much RAM is needed, with such bad performance. While I dislike some of the handmade hero culture, in one thing they are right, regarding how bad modern hardware happens to be used.

I remember UE1 being playable even software mode, such as the first Deus EX. Now, I think the Surreal Engine (UE1 reimplementation) needs damn GL 3.3 (if not 4.5 and Vulkan) to play games I used to play in an Athlon. Now I can't use surreal to Play DX on my legacy n270 netbook with GL 2.1... something that was more than enough to play the game at 800x600 with everything turned on and much more. A good thing is that I…

Me too, mostly indies and retro gamming, most of the AAA stuff isn't appealing when one has been playing games since the Atari golden days.

Re: Intel Arc Pro B50 GPU Launched at $349 for Compact Workstations

#177

Post by pjmlp »

Rohansi wrote: post #126
fredoralive wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the market of people who want huge RAM GPUs for home AI tinkering is basically about 3 Hacker News posters. Who probably won’t buy one because it doesn’t support CUDA. PS5 has something like 16GB unified RAM, and no game is going to really push much beyond that in VRAM use, we don’t really get Crysis style system crushers anymore.

> PS5 has something like 16GB unified RAM, and no game is going to really push much beyond that in VRAM use That's pretty funny considering that PC games are moving more towards 32GB RAM and 8GB+ VRAM. The next generation of consoles will of course increase to make room for higher quality assets.

In many cases due to bad programming, fixed by adding more RAM.

Re: Intel Arc Pro B50 GPU Launched at $349 for Compact Workstations

#178

Post by pjmlp »

blitzar wrote: post #137
FirmwareBurner wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Because the market of people who want huge RAM GPUs for home AI tinkering is basically about 3 Hacker News posters You're wrong. It's probably more like 9 HN posters.

There are also 3 who, for retro reasons, want GPUs to have 8 bits and 256MB or less of VRAM

Yeah, https://tixl.app/

Re: Intel Arc Pro B50 GPU Launched at $349 for Compact Workstations

#179

Post by magicalhippo »

anthk wrote: post #166
pjmlp wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone that started on 8 bit computing, Tim Sweeny is right the Electron garbage culture when applied to Unreal 5 is one of the reasons so much RAM is needed, with such bad performance. While I dislike some of the handmade hero culture, in one thing they are right, regarding how bad modern hardware happens to be used.

I remember UE1 being playable even software mode, such as the first Deus EX. Now, I think the Surreal Engine (UE1 reimplementation) needs damn GL 3.3 (if not 4.5 and Vulkan) to play games I used to play in an Athlon. Now I can't use surreal to Play DX on my legacy n270 netbook with GL 2.1... something that was more than enough to play the game at 800x600 with everything turned on and much more. A good thing is that I…

> the Surreal Engine (UE1 reimplementation)

The Unreal Engine software renderer back then had a very distinct dithering pattern. I played it after I got a proper 3D card, but it didn't feel the same, felt very flat and lifeless.

Re: Intel Arc Pro B50 GPU Launched at $349 for Compact Workstations

#180

Post by wpm »

fredoralive wrote: post #105
mythz wrote: post #73

Really confused why the Intel and AMD both continue to struggle and yet still refuse to offer what Nvidia wont, i.e. high ram consumer GPUs. I'd much prefer paying 3x cost for 3x VRAM (48GB/$1047), 6x cost for 6x VRAM (96GB/$2094), 12x cost for 12x VRAM (192GB/$4188), etc. They'd sell like hotcakes and software support would quickly improve. At 16GB I'd still prefer to pay a premium for NVidia GPUs given its superior…

Because the market of people who want huge RAM GPUs for home AI tinkering is basically about 3 Hacker News posters. Who probably won’t buy one because it doesn’t support CUDA. PS5 has something like 16GB unified RAM, and no game is going to really push much beyond that in VRAM use, we don’t really get Crysis style system crushers anymore.

This isn’t a gaming card, so what the PS5 does or has is not relevant here.
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