Panther Lake and Nova Lake laptops will return to traditional RAM sticks
Reverting to RAM sticks is good, but not shutting down GPU line. GPU market needs more competiter, not less.
Intel can’t afford to keep making GPUs because it doesn’t have the reliable CPU side to soak up the losses. The GPU market has established players and Intel, besides being a big name, didn’t bring much to the table to build a place for itself in the market. Outside of good Linux support (I’ve heard, but not personally used) the Intel GPUs don’t stand out for price or performance.
Intel is struggling with its very existence and doesn’t have the money or time to explore new markets when their primary product is cratering their own revenue. Intel has a very deep problem with how it is run and will most likely be unable to survive as-is for much longer.
As a Linux user of an Intel Arc card. I can safely say that the support is outstanding. In terms of price to performance, I think it’s pretty good too. I mainly enjoy having 16GB of VRAM and not spending $450-$500+ to get that amount like Nvidia. I know AMD also has cards around the same price that have that amount of VRAM too though
Basically there is only money at the top of the gpu range. Everything else is a budget card with razor thin margins.
AI specific chips will take off over time but even then the ship is starting to sail . These are mostly data center projects.
Intel is too big to fail. And the defense sector needs an advanced domestic foundry. Uncle Sam will bail it out with our tax money.
The United States has a few chip fabs that are capable of making military grade hardware. It’s helpful that the defense industry uses chips which aren’t the most advanced possible - they want the reliability mature tech provides. Micron, Texas Instruments, ON semiconductor - there are a few domestic chip companies with stateside fabs.
Intel is also a valuable collection of patents and a huge number of companies would love to get them. Someone will want to step in before the government takes over.
Intel is the only US based and owned foundry that is on the leading edge of fab process technology. That’s what the government wants domestically. Defense isn’t just military and certain intelligence and similar functions need high performance hardware. I somehow don’t think the NSA is using CPUs made on Northrop Grumman’s 180 nm planar CMOS process. Army radios might use that shit but the highest tech defense and intelligence agencies are using modern hardware. Intel is the best option for manufacturing it.
TSMC could be an option now with its US based GIGAFABs but it would be a much more complex deal with the US government where chips made for it would have to be made entirely in the US and possibly by a US domiciled subsidiary instead of TSMC’s main Taiwan based parent company. The same goes for Samsung.
besides being a big name, didn’t bring much.
Absolutely wrong. A lot of old and dated information in your post.
They have something no one else has: manufacturing, and very low price and great performance after recent driver updates. They just lack the driver stability which has been making leaps and bounds.
I do not think anyone else can enter the market, let alone with an edge.
I have no confidence in Intel’s long-term prospects.
They have to try revive their idea like they did in intel core i7 8709g first though
I see the idea of Intel dropping arc as good news for AMD. Intel was going to chip at AMD’s marketshare well before Nvidia’s. It would be better to have more competition though.
AMD would never close their GPU department because they sell their apu to Xbox, playstation, steam deck
Intel could have conceivably competed with them there too. If they were still a competent business and not in a crisis of mismanagement. Its amazing how much better AMD is managed compared to Intel.
I wasn’t saying AMD would shut down, but that Intel would take market share from them before truely affecting Nvidia’s market share. ie AMD and Intel would be fighting over the same 25ish% of the pc market.
