With Intel's brand new dedicated GPU due next year, they've begun talking up their efforts of getting Linux support in early.
On Twitter, their team highlighted their work:
Our journey toward a new visual computing experience is underway, and that includes a commitment to the #OpenSource community. Local memory implementation is the first of many steps toward robust Linux support for our future discrete graphics solutions.
The post links to this set of patches which reads:
In preparation for upcoming devices with device local memory, introduce the concept of different memory regions, and a simple buddy allocator to manage them. At the end of the series are a couple of HAX patches which introduce a fake local memory region for testing purposes. Currently smoke tested on a Skull Canyon device.
Intel have traditionally been pretty great with their Linux support and so this isn't exactly surprising. Even so, it's very pleasing to see them hype this up so we know we're getting first-class support.
It's exciting, we've long needed another horse to enter the race. 2020 is certainly going to be interesting. We've no idea what their target audience will be for it though, hopefully the price will be reasonable.
Could you see yourself buying an Intel discrete GPU?
I'm still rocking my NVIDIA 980ti which, thankfully, still has a good amount of time left. I've been considering an AMD GPU for a while, but it seems waiting another year might be worth it.
That being said my concern is that Intel are unlikely to be friendly to the wallet, if they follow their pricing model as they do with their CPU's I expect Intels GPU's to be at least as expensive as Nvidia and not a distruptive pricing scheme. Of course they could go agressive on pricing in order to get a foot in the door, time will tell.
It's cool to hear that Intel's thinking about getting into the game and *very* cool that their doing it their sights set on open source! Maybe Lady Nvidia will feel some pressure towards open source a wee bit more ...
Last edited by Nanobang on 18 February 2019 at 12:46 pm UTC
Now.. about the Intel GPUs. I'm mainly loyal to open source, seeing how Intel supports Linux and open source as well, I will definitely look seriously at their GPUs (depending on the price of course), but I also hope the next AMD GPU generation will be worth it.
Last edited by Creak on 18 February 2019 at 1:00 pm UTC
Definitely I buy Intel GPU if it's CHEAPER than AMD! For low to mid-end GPU, AMD is king as it always much cheaper (and sometimes better) than Nvidia for almost same specs, except last year when Crypto-craziness..
Also if it's as same price or cheaper than AMD, probably a great news for our *BSD friend too as another great alternative to Nvidia. Historically AMD never play nice on *BSD but I didn't following *BSD news/update since 2016, so I don't know how current situation on Graphic drivers on *BSD.
Right now I am very happy with AMD. The drivers keep getting better, so I think we have not seen the full potential of what AMD can do on Linux yet.
The GPU market NEEDS REAL competition...
Personally, I'm waiting for AMD's new architecture cards to come out, which are supposedly post Navi. But Intel is very welcome too.
Last edited by Shmerl on 18 February 2019 at 5:41 pm UTC
Will be curios about the future reviews.
This may be autistic, but I'll never pair anything by AMD with NVIDIA or Intel. Which is why both my CPU and GPU are AMD.Yeah I'm in the same boat right now. I've always had AMD and I really like their stuff especially seeing as their FOSS drivers are awesome. I'll never touch nvidia unless they have a serious change of heart regarding Linux and Intel is a maybe depending on how competitive the price to performance is. If I'm being honest though I don't see myself leaving team red anytime soon.
Last edited by Scoopta on 18 February 2019 at 9:51 pm UTC
Some gpus are waaay to expensive at the moment.
It's also gonna be fun to see how intel will market there gpu.
Last edited by Zelox on 19 February 2019 at 12:40 am UTC
This may be autistic, but I'll never pair anything by AMD with NVIDIA or Intel. Which is why both my CPU and GPU are AMD.So stuff has to match? Not so much autistic as OCD-ish, I guess. Kind of gives AMD the advantage there, since they're the only outfit seriously doing both things at the moment. But with stuff like this article, you could end up in position to go Intel + Intel.
Last edited by Purple Library Guy on 19 February 2019 at 3:30 am UTC
Plus to top it off I'm only looking at GPU's significantly faster then 1080TI, which Intel has said no too, they are just going to have RX580 competing products...
Therefore: As long as there is no performance or no price/performance ratio that makes everything else look just crude old and knocks me off my socks, I will continue to support the commercial underdog and AMD.
Intel has had an open source graphics stack long since AMD/ATI. If they can fit into the power vacuum left by AMD in the high end, and not let Ngreedya fill it in with more overpriced rock, I’m all for it.
I’d still much rather prefer a Risc V-sequel solution, that comes from a company that never abused the FOSS licenses and has no proprietary drivers, butintel is good enough.
If they can fit into the power vacuum left by AMD in the high end,
I don't think there is any vacuum. AMD are working on new architecture for high end, so Intel will be competing like others.
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