Live data from Hacker News

Intel announces Arc B-series "Battlemage" discrete graphics with Linux support

phoronix.com

381–390 of 722 posts

Re: Intel announces Arc B-series "Battlemage" discrete graphics with Linux support

#381
post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is nVidia or AmD offering 128gb cards in any configuration?

You can run an AMD APU with 128GB of shared RAM.

It's too slow and not very compatible. Most BIOSes also don't allow sharing that much memory with GPU (max like 16GB).

Re: Intel announces Arc B-series "Battlemage" discrete graphics with Linux support

#382

Why don't they just release a basic GPU with 128GB RAM and eat NVidia's local generative AI lunch? The networking effect of all devs porting their LLMs etc. to that card would instantly put them as a major CUDA threat. But beancounters running the company would never get such an idea...

Disclosure: HPC admin who works with NIVIDA cards here. Because, no. It's not as simple as that. NVIDIA has a complete ecosystem now. They have cards. They have cards of cards (platforms), which they produce, validate and sell. They have NVLink crossbars and switches which connects these cards on their card of cards with very high speeds and low latency. For inter-server communication they have libraries which coordi…

I have a question for you, since I’m somewhat entering the HPC world. In the EU the EuroHPC-JU is building what they call AI factories, afaict these are just batch processing (Slurm I think) clusters with GPUs in the nodes. So I wonder where you’d place those cards of cards. Are you saying there is another, perhaps better ways to use massive amounts of these cards? Or is that still in the “super powerful workstation” domain? Thanx in advance.

Re: Intel announces Arc B-series "Battlemage" discrete graphics with Linux support

#383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

M3/M4 Max MacBooks with 128GB RAM are already way better than an A6000 for very large local LLMs. So even if the GPU is as slow as the one in M3/M4 Max (<3070), and using some basic RAM like LPDDR5x it would still be way faster than anything from NVidia.

The M4 Max needs an enormous 512bit memory bus to extract enough bandwidth out of those LPDDR5x chips, while the GPUs that Intel just launched are 192/160bit and even flagships rarely exceed 384bit. They can't just slap more memory on the board, they would need to dedicate significantly more silicon area to memory IO and drive up the cost of the part, assuming their architecture would even scale that wide without hit…

The memory controller would be bigger, and the cost would be higher, but not radically higher. It would be an attractive product for local inference even at triple the current price and the development expense would be 100% justified if it helped Intel get any kind of foothold in the ML market.

Re: Intel announces Arc B-series "Battlemage" discrete graphics with Linux support

#384
post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm baffled that PC gamers have decided that 1440p is the endgame for graphics. When I look at a 27-inch 1440p display, I see pixel edges everywhere. It's right at the edge of losing the visibility of individual pixels, since I can't perceive them at 27-inch 2160p, but not quite there yet for desktop distances. Time marches on, and I become ever more separated from gaming PC enthusiasts.

This is a trade-off with frame rates and rendering quality. When having to choose, most gamers prefer higher frame rate and rendering quality. With 4K, that becomes very expensive, if not impossible. 4K is 2.25 times the pixels of 1440p, which for example means you can get double the frame rate with 1440p using the same processing power and bandwidth. In other words, the current tech just isn’t quite there yet, or no…

Arguably 1440p is the sweet spot for gaming, but I love 4k monitors for the extra text sharpness. Fortunately DLSS and FSR upscaling are pretty good these days. At 4k, quality-mode upscaling gives you a native render resolution about 1440p, with image quality a little better and performance a little worse.

It’s a great way to have my cake and eat it too.

Re: Intel announces Arc B-series "Battlemage" discrete graphics with Linux support

#385
post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think plenty of enthusiastic open source devs would jump at it and fix their software if the software was reasonably open. The same effect as what happened when Meta released LLaMA.

It is open and they regularly merge PRs. https://github.com/ROCm/ROCm/pulls?q=is%3Apr+is%3Aclosed

AMD GPUs aren't very attractive to ML folks because they don't outshine Nvidia in any single aspect. Blasting lots of RAM onto a GPU would make it attractive immediately with lots of attention from devs occupied with more interesting things.

Re: Intel announces Arc B-series "Battlemage" discrete graphics with Linux support

#386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No you don‘t need much bandwidth between cards for inference

Copying daemons (gdrcopy) is about pumping data in and out of a single card. docker-nvidia and rest of the stack is enablement for using cards. GPU-Direct is about pumping data from storage devices to cards, esp. from high speed storage systems across networks. MIG actually shares a single card to multiple instances, so many processes or VMs can use a single card for smaller tasks. Nothing I have written in my previo…

Mostly, I think, we don’t really understand your argument that Intel couldn’t easily replicate the parts needed only for inference.

Re: Intel announces Arc B-series "Battlemage" discrete graphics with Linux support

#387
post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ML is about hit another winter. Maybe intel is ahead of industry. Or we can keep asking high computers questions about programming.

> ML is about hit another winter. I agree ML is about to hit (or has likely already hit) some serious constraints compared to breathless predictions of two years ago. I don't think there's anything equivalent to the AI winter on the horizon, though—LLMs even operated by people who have no clue how the underlying mechanism functions are still far more empowered than anything like the primitives of the 80s enabled.

> even operated by people who have no clue how the underlying mechanism functions are still far more empowered than anything like the primitives of the 80s enabled.

I'm still not convinced about that. All the """studies""" show 30-60% boost in productivity but clearly this doesn't translate to anything meaningful in real life because no industry laid off 30-60% of their workforce and no industry progressed anywhere close to 30% since chat gpt was released.

It's been released a whole 24 months ago, remember the talks about freeing us from work and curing cancer... Even investments funds which are the biggest suckers for anything profitable are more and more doubtful

Re: Intel announces Arc B-series "Battlemage" discrete graphics with Linux support

#388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gaming at 2160p is just too expensive still, imo. You gotta pay more for your monitor, GPU and PSU. Then if you want side monitors that match in resolution, you're paying more for those as well. You say PC gamers at the start of your comment and gaming PC enthusiasts at the end. These groups are not the same and I'd say the latter is largely doing ultrawide, 4k monitor or even 4k TV. According to steam, 56% are on 10…

I'm still using a 50" 1080p (plasma!) television in my living room. It's close to 15 years old now. I've seen newer and bigger TVs many times at my friends house, but it's just not better enough that I can be bothered to upgrade.

Doesn't plasma have deep blacks and color reproduction similar to OLED? They're still very good displays, and being 15 years old means it probably pre-dates the SmartTV era.

Re: Intel announces Arc B-series "Battlemage" discrete graphics with Linux support

#389

I think a graphics card tailored for 2k gaming is actually great. 2k really is the goldilocks zone between 4k and 1080p graphics before you start creeping into diminishing returns.

Can it compete with the massive used GPU market though? Why buy a new Intel card when I can get a used Nvidia card that I know will work well?

To some, buying used never crosses their mind.

Re: Intel announces Arc B-series "Battlemage" discrete graphics with Linux support

#390
post #330
post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I'd agree monetisation seems to be a challenge in the long term (analogy: spreadsheets are used everywhere, but are so easy to make they're not themselves a revenue stream, only as part of a bigger package)… > Nvidia had a revenue of $27billion in 2023 - that's about $160 per person per year [0] for every working age person in the USA As a non-American, I'd like to point out we also earn money. > as no AI is go…

Sure, robotics help many jobs, and some level of the current deep learning boom seems to have crossover in improving that - but how many of them are running LLMs that affect Nvidia's bottom line right now? There's some interesting research in that area, but it's certainly not the primary driving force. And then is the control system the limiting factor for many systems - it's probably relatively easy to get a machine…

Machines that will make espresso, automatically, that I personally like better than what Starbucks serves are widely available. No AI needed, and they aren't even "robotic". They can use ordinary coffee beans, and you can get them for home use or for commercial use. You can also go to a mall and get a robot to make you coffee.

Nonetheless, Starbucks does not use these machines, and I don't see any reason that AI, on its current trajectory, will change that calculation any time soon.

Post reply on HN