Raja went to Intel, and if you don’t know who Raja Koduri is, you are in the wrong place. He is a C level GPU engineer that worked with ATI, Apple, AMD / RTG and now Intel and the chap is capable of making pretty good GPUs. Lots of people were disappointed by the fact that Vega didn’t outperform Nvidia Geforce 1080 Ti, but bear in mind that Raja had a fraction of the resources of Nvidia and still managed to get close. With Intel resources and the right people, Nvidia might well get some serious competition.

Ashraf mentions two SKUs,  codenamed Arctic sound. One is for video streaming apps in data centers, and one is for gaming. One important segment was not mentioned as what Intel needs to address are the AI advantages of the GPU. This is the main focus. Having a  good chipset on the edge might be enough to let you stream some great GPU gaming power in just a few years. Just look at Geforce Now, and all will be clear where Nvidia is going in the not so distant future. Future GPUs will stream rather than sit in your desktop.

Of course, Intel desperately wants to challenge Nvidia since the Can of whoop ass times.

This grudge has been ten years old and it kicked Nvidia out of the chipset market but made Nvidia focus on things like Cuda that eventually got it where it is today. Now Nvidia is the hardware leader of AI market, as it has the best hardware and API/software stack, Intel essentially settled with Nvidia, but the disagreement never really went away.

More importantly, Intel wants to increase the power of the IGP as this represents the majority of the GPU shipments in the world. Gaming is important but giving a decent performance from basic integrated graphics in future core processors would cause major trouble and market share loss for both Nvidia and AMD.

The future console might become streaming devices and that looks like the future of discrete GPUs. This won’t happen overnight but give it a few years and you will have the option to stream a decent GPU power on your all IGP notebook.

Bonus: Apparently @Rajaontheedge is redefining Arctic Sound (first Intel dGPU), was originally targeted for video streaming apps in data center, but now being split into two: the video streaming stuff and gaming. Apparently wants to “enter the market with a bang.”

— Ashraf Eassa (@TMFChipFool) April 6, 2018