00:00:00
AMD revealed the 960 XT. It's going to
00:00:03
be launching June 5th, which is in just
00:00:05
a couple of weeks. The 8 gig version is
00:00:08
$299 and we're not super stoked on that.
00:00:12
Uh but the 16 gig version is at an MSRP
00:00:16
anyway of $3.49 with Yes. Okay. It's
00:00:19
only a 128 bit bus card, which used to
00:00:23
mean it would be like
00:00:24
$130, not
00:00:27
$350. Um, but it's uh the performance
00:00:33
looks pretty darn okay and uh AMD is
00:00:38
even like decent at at ray tracing and
00:00:40
they've got like all the upscaling
00:00:42
technology and all of that. So, if
00:00:44
you're into that, then you can turn all
00:00:46
of that stuff on. I mean, that's pretty
00:00:48
neat. Uh, I know a lot of people are
00:00:50
really upset that there's even an 8 gig
00:00:52
version of the card at all, but can I
00:00:56
play devil's advocate for a moment here?
00:00:59
No. Okay, let's move on. Intel announced
00:01:03
the Arc Pro B60. Really? I mean, yeah,
00:01:06
you can. You're just not going to let me
00:01:07
if you want. No, I mean, look, if that's
00:01:09
the dynamic you want to have, I'm okay.
00:01:11
I' I've uh, you know, we could get some
00:01:14
leather. You like that? Yeah.
00:01:17
Oh, boy.
00:01:19
Well, it's going to be one of those
00:01:20
kinds of jokes today.
00:01:24
Conveniently, there's a bed right here.
00:01:27
Poor Andy.
00:01:31
Yeah, Andy. Um, I heard that if you do
00:01:34
that kind of work, you basically can
00:01:35
never find like, you know, non-
00:01:38
pornographic work ever again. Is that
00:01:40
going to be a problem for you? Is that a
00:01:41
thing? I don't know. Couldn't you just
00:01:44
not put on your resume or does it like
00:01:46
get around? I I mean I I
00:01:50
I you know like we might never know.
00:01:53
Maybe he's done this kind of work under
00:01:55
the table. I was one day only grader or
00:01:58
only or on top of the table. I mean
00:02:02
table's got all kinds of surfaces you
00:02:04
can get on top of or under. It's true.
00:02:08
Hey, so hold on. Hold on. Let me play
00:02:09
devil's advocate for a moment for the
00:02:12
960 XT.
00:02:14
8 gig.
00:02:16
Should we be upset about AMD providing
00:02:20
the option for someone to have a
00:02:22
crappier GPU at a lower price? The thing
00:02:25
that gets me is the lower price is still
00:02:27
300, I'm assuming, American dollars.
00:02:29
Yes. And the other thing that also gets
00:02:32
me is that AMD just cannot decide what
00:02:35
their story is on 8 gig GPUs because you
00:02:39
know what whenever they have a you know
00:02:42
a VRAM advantage they're all
00:02:45
like
00:02:47
pathetic. Our competitor is full of crap
00:02:52
basically. And then when they don't
00:02:53
they're like oh it doesn't matter. Yeah.
00:02:55
Then they're like well actually it's
00:02:57
fine for 1080p gaming. I went with Sammy
00:02:59
to a a land cafe this week and like
00:03:03
looking at literally all of the games
00:03:05
that everyone was playing.
00:03:09
It doesn't matter. It wouldn't have
00:03:10
mattered. However, however,
00:03:12
counterpoint. H I was supposed to be the
00:03:14
devil's advocate, but I guess we're
00:03:17
doing a little It still doesn't make me
00:03:19
happy. If I'm spending $300 on a card, I
00:03:21
should get 16 gigs of RAM. We're roll.
00:03:24
Come on. It also to play those games to
00:03:27
play those games that Luke is talking
00:03:29
about, right? I could also just be using
00:03:32
I don't know a 5000 series Radeon card
00:03:36
or uh you know
00:03:38
like realistic realistically I could be
00:03:42
using like a Polaris card to play League
00:03:44
of Legends. Like who cares? I mean you
00:03:46
might want high frame rate though. This
00:03:48
is true. This is true. I because a lot
00:03:50
of them were playing C a lot of them
00:03:51
were playing CS 1.6.
00:03:54
six, which was sick. Really? Yeah. There
00:03:58
was a mix of uh I guess two goto or
00:04:03
whatever and then 1.6.
00:04:07
Shut up. So sick. So like no source. And
00:04:09
they they had a they had a LAN version
00:04:12
of like 1.6 so they could keep playing.
00:04:14
Intel announced the Arc Pro B60 and B50
00:04:18
workstation cards. They're using their
00:04:20
XC2 battle mage architecture with Wow,
00:04:24
thank you whoever prepared these notes
00:04:26
today. Um XE Vector engines and XE
00:04:30
matrix extensions engines. Okay, none of
00:04:33
that is the important thing about Arc
00:04:35
Pro. Uh the important thing about Arc
00:04:37
Pro is that we are talking about cards
00:04:40
with certified drivers for just a few
00:04:42
hundred. B50 is not going to be lighting
00:04:46
anyone's world on fire in terms of its
00:04:48
groundbreaking performance. But what it
00:04:50
does have is certified flipping drivers
00:04:53
so that when you're building out uh you
00:04:56
know an architectural firm's office and
00:04:59
everyone in their flipping dog needs a
00:05:01
professional GPU, you can take your
00:05:03
little you know slimline
00:05:06
uh you know octoplex stations or
00:05:08
whatever. You can slap these babies in
00:05:10
there. They are I believe they max out
00:05:12
at 70 watts which means that they can
00:05:15
work without a PCIe power cable. Uh they
00:05:18
are dual width half height. They come
00:05:21
with both the half height and full
00:05:22
height bracket. So you can throw these
00:05:24
things into basically any desktop
00:05:26
chassis. And boom. And I was actually, I
00:05:30
got to admit, when Intel put up the
00:05:33
slides about compared to last gen, I was
00:05:38
like, y'all had an Alchemist ProGPU.
00:05:42
Yeah. Totally missed
00:05:44
that. Did Did anyone care about that?
00:05:46
Did they actually? Yeah. Oh, wow. I had
00:05:48
no idea. Yeah. No, I had I had no idea.
00:05:51
And
00:05:51
um and so I was I was quite surprised
00:05:56
because the slide that had all of the
00:05:58
companies that they had certified their
00:06:01
drivers with was like impressive. I was
00:06:04
like yo Solid Works, Autodesk, Blender,
00:06:08
like y'all y'all got like like really
00:06:11
like the big names here. That's really
00:06:13
good for a firstg product that hasn't
00:06:16
even launched yet. But just just like on
00:06:19
the gaming side, Intel's software side
00:06:22
for Arc has been cooking. Like the
00:06:26
amount of performance they squeezed out
00:06:28
of what I think now that Battle Mage is
00:06:31
out, Intel would probably even admit was
00:06:34
a fundamentally flawed architecture in
00:06:37
Alchemist. like they had they had issues
00:06:40
with the um I think it was with the
00:06:43
internal caching or something that was
00:06:45
the reason that um like you absolutely
00:06:48
needed resizable bar or it basically
00:06:51
went to crap town in a hurry in terms of
00:06:53
performance. I I forget what the exact
00:06:55
technical reason was but like there were
00:06:57
hardware reasons that Alchemist was not
00:07:00
very good. boy did they ever squeeze a
00:07:03
lot of it. And that gives me so much
00:07:07
confidence in their commit level because
00:07:10
you can release a GPU relatively easily.
00:07:14
And I I say this as a as a as a lay
00:07:18
person who could not possibly hope to
00:07:20
design and release a GPU. I say this as
00:07:23
like compared to a CPU. GPUs are
00:07:27
relatively relatively simple.
00:07:31
Um, but it's the software. The software
00:07:35
will kill you. That's that's the
00:07:38
challenge that Intel knew that they were
00:07:40
coming up against. It wasn't you build a
00:07:42
parallel processor. The rate at which
00:07:44
you need to release
00:07:45
stable drivers, right? Because of all
00:07:48
these new games coming out and stuff
00:07:49
like damn. Here's a question for you.
00:07:52
Yeah.
00:07:53
Do you
00:07:54
think ARC can survive and thrive and
00:07:58
continue forward uh if TAP retires?
00:08:02
Let's get to that in a second. First,
00:08:03
let's talk about the B60. This is a more
00:08:06
performant card. This one, instead of
00:08:08
being 70 watts, I believe it's a couple
00:08:11
hundred watts. Uh don't don't quote me
00:08:12
on that, though. The watts are not in
00:08:14
here. Doesn't matter. The point is this
00:08:16
is meant to be more like uh a cheap and
00:08:19
cheerful um 24 gig AI capable card that
00:08:23
you can have in a slightly higherend
00:08:26
workstation slash they have this concept
00:08:29
that they were showing off called battle
00:08:31
matrix and they're doing some again down
00:08:34
to the software. They're doing some
00:08:36
software tom foolery that's supposed to
00:08:38
make it much easier to take a whole pool
00:08:41
of these cards, up to eight of them,
00:08:43
combine the memory, split up your AI
00:08:45
workloads so you can chunk it out and
00:08:47
chew on the whole thing in parallel. And
00:08:50
you know what? Is the performance going
00:08:51
to be as good as an Nvidia
00:08:54
solution? Be real. No. Right. But the
00:08:58
price be a lot cheaper. But the price
00:09:01
literally we are talking about if Intel
00:09:04
gets their way and this comes to market
00:09:05
at the pricing that they're targeting.
00:09:07
We are talking about like a a full fat
00:09:10
rack mount solution with 192 gigs of
00:09:13
usable VRAM plus you can you know stack
00:09:16
it up with system memory that you can
00:09:19
overflow into. We're talking about
00:09:21
starting at anywhere from 5 to $10,000.
00:09:24
And they are not giving pricing for B60
00:09:26
Pro, but what they are saying is that
00:09:28
that $5 to $10,000 is for the whole
00:09:31
chassis with anywhere from 1 to 8 GPUs.
00:09:35
So, it's like, okay, I think I can do
00:09:37
the math. And
00:09:39
and on the record, but you know, don't
00:09:43
quote me on this, right? Sure. Um,
00:09:46
they're saying that they think they can
00:09:48
do even better than the $700 or so per
00:09:51
GPU that that would that $5 to $10,000
00:09:54
mark works out to like given time. I
00:09:58
mean, the hardware, right? The hardware
00:10:00
is literally just an RCB580. Yeah. For
00:10:03
the for the B60 Pro or for the Pro B60,
00:10:06
excuse me. So, yeah, nothing should
00:10:09
prevent them from doing this for, you
00:10:11
know, 500 bucks or whatever. And if the
00:10:13
goal is to get an install base out
00:10:15
there, which is an assignment that Intel
00:10:18
seems to somewhat understand at this
00:10:21
point, then that's exactly what you need
00:10:24
to do. You make this investment upfront
00:10:26
in the software ecosystem for developers
00:10:29
and then you make the hardware
00:10:32
accessible. If I can get like a whole
00:10:35
ass server platform for
00:10:37
realistically not that different a price
00:10:40
from like a Mac
00:10:43
studio and like that that is a you know
00:10:47
a decently substantial group of people
00:10:49
cuz there's a lot of like small to
00:10:51
mediumsiz businesses that want
00:10:54
local like LMS uh inline IDE assistants
00:10:59
stuff like that um that are building
00:11:02
these solutions
00:11:04
And if you could just do it with art
00:11:06
cards, like why not? Dude, speaking of
00:11:09
arc cards and pricing, um I had
00:11:13
a intense conversation
00:11:17
um with a very very very old uh old
00:11:21
acquaintance of mine um Vivian who is
00:11:23
running the discrete GPU. She's a VP and
00:11:26
GM. So, basically running discrete GPU
00:11:29
for Intel Arc. Um,
00:11:33
where I have to confess, Vivian, if
00:11:36
you're watching this, I know you don't
00:11:37
watch my show, that's totally fine, but
00:11:39
if you're watching this, which you're
00:11:40
not, um, I'm sorry I was a little
00:11:42
cranky. Um, I got a little bit set off
00:11:46
by one of the slides that Intel had in
00:11:48
their deck. the whole the whole thing
00:11:50
was about Arc Pro and you know I I so I
00:11:54
I I didn't make the video about this or
00:11:56
anything like that but their Ark Pro
00:11:59
deck had one slide right at the
00:12:02
beginning. Okay, that was like Arc
00:12:06
Battle Mage. So it was about the nonpro,
00:12:08
right? Arc Battle Mage uh leading
00:12:10
performance per dollar and you know
00:12:12
basically was kind of setting the stage
00:12:14
for let's go non-gamers. We got we we're
00:12:18
going to have great performance per
00:12:19
dollar just like we do with our gaming
00:12:21
cards.
00:12:23
Um and it was like best performance per
00:12:27
dollar
00:12:30
asterisk best value for GPUs under $300,
00:12:35
which is one hell of an asterisk. Yeah,
00:12:38
that's uh asterisk two as of November
00:12:43
2024 because
00:12:46
Yeah. Okay. So, so that was my face. The
00:12:50
November 2024, I suspect, is probably
00:12:52
just because that's when they ran the
00:12:53
numbers and they're not going to rerun
00:12:55
those numbers for one slide in an Arc
00:12:57
Pro presentation. So,
00:13:00
a fairly convenient time to have ran the
00:13:02
numbers. I'll let that one pass. I'll
00:13:04
let that one pass. But the one It's also
00:13:06
been a long time since then. The one
00:13:08
that I was really upset about was that
00:13:10
it said under $300.
00:13:14
And when I basically was like, "Hey, so
00:13:17
look, I don't want to be that guy, but
00:13:19
it's literally my job to press GPU
00:13:22
companies on the fact that GPUs cannot
00:13:25
be purchased at MSRP. Um, I don't like
00:13:30
you guys showing this slide when I can't
00:13:33
buy an ARB 580 for under $300. Yeah,
00:13:37
this card shouldn't be able to be on the
00:13:38
slide that it's that's when the
00:13:40
conversation got a little bit
00:13:43
intense. And that's at least 93% my
00:13:48
fault because I was just we we we got
00:13:53
off on the wrong foot a little bit. I
00:13:55
really didn't like that. And the and
00:13:58
then the response was not great. I'm not
00:14:02
going to name who said this part um
00:14:04
because it was it was whole group
00:14:06
setting. There was like a dozen intel
00:14:07
people in the room. Um so someone was
00:14:09
like, "Yes, you can." And I was like,
00:14:12
"Okay, show me." And they pulled up like
00:14:16
mineactory.de or something. And I'm
00:14:18
like,
00:14:20
"Right." And that's where I got a little
00:14:23
I got a little more frustrated. Your
00:14:25
slide says US dollars.
00:14:28
You don't get to convert euros. to US
00:14:32
and tell me I can buy an ARC B580 for
00:14:35
under $300. That sir is actually
00:14:39
That's whack. You're not
00:14:40
allowed to do that. Yeah. Um and so what
00:14:43
I basically said to them is look what I
00:14:47
need is I don't need you to fix it right
00:14:49
now. I don't need you to call up New
00:14:51
Egg, who is in the middle of the night
00:14:53
now, and tell them to to to to fix their
00:14:56
pricing. But what I need is a coherent
00:14:59
strategy that Intel will be employing to
00:15:02
ensure that ARC B580s will be available
00:15:05
at MSRP in the US in US dollars. And
00:15:10
then I got more intense because
00:15:14
basically, and I'm not going to name
00:15:16
sort of names, but people started to
00:15:18
kind of pipe up and go, well, you know,
00:15:19
we can't control what our board partners
00:15:22
do in terms of pricing and what
00:15:24
retailers do in terms of pricing. And I
00:15:26
basically was
00:15:29
like, I'm gonna let you finish,
00:15:32
but I worked in the channel. Do not tell
00:15:37
me that. You absolutely have levers. You
00:15:40
absolutely do. Whether or not you choose
00:15:44
to pull them, that is your choice. But
00:15:47
you have levers. You have levers in
00:15:49
terms of production. Arizona Iced Tea
00:15:51
can do it. You have levers in terms of
00:15:53
production. You have levers in terms of
00:15:56
allocation of parts. You have levers in
00:15:59
terms of the marketing funding that you
00:16:02
provide to your partners, both
00:16:04
manufacturing partners and retail
00:16:06
partners. You have levers in terms of
00:16:09
the fact that you have a founders
00:16:12
edition. You have your limited edition
00:16:14
cards that have an Intel label on them
00:16:17
that you could literally control the
00:16:19
pricing on that only exist so that you
00:16:22
can put pressure on other board partners
00:16:25
to fall in line in terms of pricing.
00:16:28
Everybody knows that's why Founders
00:16:29
Edition exists,
00:16:32
right? You I just listed and that's not
00:16:35
even all of the levers. I listed many
00:16:38
levers that you have to manage channel
00:16:41
pricing. It's not legal in every market,
00:16:43
but there is
00:16:45
um actually, okay, that typically goes
00:16:48
the other way, but there's there's
00:16:49
things like map pricing where you have a
00:16:51
minimum advertised price. Um it that can
00:16:54
be considered price fixing depending on
00:16:56
the market. I'm just saying
00:16:58
illegal or not. Many brands attempt to
00:17:02
do it. Um so, so there are levers. There
00:17:04
are levers to pull. And after things got
00:17:07
a little intense for a little bit, I got
00:17:10
a firm commitment that Intel would come
00:17:12
to me with a strategy where they were
00:17:15
going to get
00:17:16
pricing to MSRP. And I didn't I didn't
00:17:20
even ask for like
00:17:21
$249.99. I was like, look, I get it.
00:17:25
This one has three fans on it. It's
00:17:28
$269.99.
00:17:30
Okay. You okay? This is an OC. Sure. You
00:17:33
whatever product variants, whatever.
00:17:35
That's fine. That's fine. There's
00:17:37
there's there's
00:17:39
more than a decade of precedent for,
00:17:41
hey, this one is a little more this is
00:17:43
one's a little more fixy fixy.
00:17:47
Um, you know, we we did some extra
00:17:50
special stuff with the VRM. No problem
00:17:53
with that. Um, but if you're going to
00:17:56
say, and this is this is where the
00:17:58
sticking point is. If you're going to
00:18:00
say this GPU costs this much and you're
00:18:03
going to ask me to say this GPU costs
00:18:05
this much, don't make me a liar. Yeah, I
00:18:09
don't like
