Intel are set to fully enter the dedicated GPU game soon with Intel Arc, although we're still in for a bit of a wait. Writing in a fresh blog post, they did their own little Q&A session with Lisa Pearce, Vice President and General Manager for the Visual Compute Group at Intel.
The problem is, they're still not being very clear about the worldwide availability, and this blog post didn't exactly help.
To sum it up:
- Intel Arc for mobile / laptop so far only has Samsung who started in Korea, and they're "expanding globally". Intel Arc 3 for mobile will be due "ASAP", with Intel Arc 5 and Arc 7 graphics for mobile "in early summer".
- For desktops they will start in China for the entry level Intel Arc A-series (A3), this is just for system builders and OEMs in "Q2". Following along "shortly" China will also see retail sales, as Intel say strong demand and how close China is to the supply makes the most sense and then their "next step" is to go global with no date mentioned for the entry level.
- Intel Arc A5 and A7 desktop cards will be "later this summer" for OEMs and system integrators worldwide, with "component sales" worldwide some unnamed time after.
Intel being about as clear as mud here. Overall though, we should eventually see all the main dedicated Intel Arc series models by the end of Summer / start of Autumn 2022 worldwide by the sounds of it.
Part of the problem are their drivers, which just aren't in a ready state, and this was hinted at with Pearce mentioning "some software readiness delays".
So there you have it, that's the latest on Intel Arc release dates.
But at least one thing remains the same... non-ASUS motherboards sucked in the past and they still kind of suck :P
I have 2 Asus mobos here that beg to differ. Both stopped working right after their 1 year warranty expired... Meanwhile, I also have mobos from other manufacturers (like Gigabyte) that still going strong after a 10 year period.
The industry is so weird. We basically went from so many people making CPUs and GPUs to basically 2 for CPUs and 3 for GPUsDon't look now, but that isn't weird. That kind of "consolidation" has happened in industry after industry over the last few decades. It's currently the biggest driver of inflation--so many areas without meaningful competition, where corporate honchos have realized that with supply chain bottlenecks etc. they have gorgeous excuses to jack prices up way further than those problems actually warrant, and nobody will undercut them 'cause they're practically monopolies.
One thing I notice about this announcement--China is now officially the world's main economic superpower, not the US. New high-tech products are being rolled out first in China now, because that's where they're made and because the market is there. Stick a fork in US hegemony, it's done.
Ha, you are right, weird isn't the right word. Fucking annoying... yup that is the right word. I miss things like Matrox, and Amiga. Look at the Role-playing industry. This is one that is now 50 years old, so actually about the same as the personal computer market. There are still TONS of actively developed and supported systems out there. While most still revolve around the big two (Pathfinder and D&D), there are so many other great ones.The industry is so weird. We basically went from so many people making CPUs and GPUs to basically 2 for CPUs and 3 for GPUsDon't look now, but that isn't weird. That kind of "consolidation" has happened in industry after industry over the last few decades. It's currently the biggest driver of inflation--so many areas without meaningful competition, where corporate honchos have realized that with supply chain bottlenecks etc. they have gorgeous excuses to jack prices up way further than those problems actually warrant, and nobody will undercut them 'cause they're practically monopolies.
One thing I notice about this announcement--China is now officially the world's main economic superpower, not the US. New high-tech products are being rolled out first in China now, because that's where they're made and because the market is there. Stick a fork in US hegemony, it's done.
Only reason I can see why is due to D&D mostly being a toy made by a toy company, and others are made by passionate people who love the hobby. Of course it doesn't hurt with the amount of people who end up making up their own systems because of the shortcomings of whichever one they started with. Ha, kind of like how we have so many Desktop Environments.
I have had the most random issues when I've gone with others than Asus. Like I had an MSI board that would randomly lose USB. Only fix was to pull the CMOS battery out and put it back in.But at least one thing remains the same... non-ASUS motherboards sucked in the past and they still kind of suck :P
I have 2 Asus mobos here that beg to differ. Both stopped working right after their 1 year warranty expired... Meanwhile, I also have mobos from other manufacturers (like Gigabyte) that still going strong after a 10 year period.
Reason I started using Asus back in the day was because the first system I built had a motherboard with such a bad layout that two of the PCI slots couldn't be used because they'd placed the BIOS chip right between the back of the case and the slot.
Hmm, I thought most boards I've bought from Asus have a 3 year warranty? I've also had pretty poor luck with most AMD CPU based boards I've tried over the years (that above MSI board, and a couple other weird issues with them, usually bugs in the bios. Though the one in my current desktop system has been really solid).
I have a gigabyte board in my living room PC. I haven't been terribly impressed with it, but it's been pretty solid so far.
The onboard NIC shipped with my Crosshair IV Hero died a couple of months ago.Do you have frequent power surges? I have found NICs usually trip something and pulling all power from it for 30 secods or so should reset it. I used to swap between two PCI NICs long ago because one would stop working then I would put in the other and it would work until the next power surge.
Do you have frequent power surges?Line frequency drops below 50hz [EU] every now and then (less than one per month I guess?). The Intel NICs in my server are several years older but still kickin'.
I remember the old days when Nvidia made chipsets for Intel processorsAh, the good old nForce4…
I remember the old days when Nvidia made chipsets for Intel processorsDidn't they also make AMD ones? Seems to me I would stay away from the Ali, SIS, etc because I always had random issues with those (the main reason I stayed away from AMD based systems for so long).
Recapping these old Pentium era systems are going to suck, but hey, I haven't huffed flux fumes in a while. :P
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