Tag: GPU

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Mobile Syrup

New report details scrapped iPhone 14 GPU with ray tracing

Apple’s chip engineers seemed to be overly ambitious ahead of the iPhone 14’s launch. A new report from The Information outlines how the company scrapped plans for an ultrapowerful mobile GPU before the iPhone 14’s release.

The report also details two lawsuits Apple is engaged in with chip-making startups over what the tech giant claims is stolen proprietary chip design information.

However, what’s most interesting is that Apple is working to bring ray tracing-enabled tech to the iPhone. This relatively recent gaming graphics feature allows for more realistic lighting, shadows and reflections, but it draws a significant amount of power. According to the report, Apple was working on the feature for the iPhone 14 Pro, but had to cut it since it pulled too much power and generated a lot of heat.

Apple may not have gotten ray tracing working on the iPhone 14 series, but it’s fascinating to learn that the company is working on the technology. If Apple can get it up and running, it should give the iPhone and iPad a significant leg up in the portable gaming space. Mobile game Lego Star Wars Castaways already blew me away this year with its graphics, and I can only imagine how much better it would get with ray traced lighting.

Source: The Information Via: 9to5Mac

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Mobile Syrup

After two years, the Nvidia and AMD GPU shortage may be behind us

For the past two years, anyone on the hunt for a new GPU has had to have an equal amount of patience and luck. As with many other segments of the tech industry, the pandemic made it difficult for eager customers to get their hands on an Nvidia or AMD graphics card. However, we may have reached the tipping point.

Whether it’s an Nvidia RTX 3080 or an AMD 6900 XT, GPUs have been well sought after this year. Since the peak of the pandemic, suppliers have not been able to keep up with the global demand. Even when retailers were able to re-up their stock, scalpers, bots and shoddy infrastructure got in the way of many obtaining one.

With high demand came a high secondhand resell price tag. eBay and other markets saw GPUs sitting at more than double their retail price. However, it appears as though these prices are now normalizing. It’s been reported that since January 2022, the cost of many GPUs fell by more than 50 percent of their inflated price.

At the start of the year, the street pricing saw the Nvidia RTX 3090 land at $2,609 USD (roughly $3,356 CAD). The price then fell to $1,837 USD ($2,363 CAD) by April. That same GPU is now available for around $1,033 ($1,329 CAD).

The secondhand market may be stabilizing. It appears to indicate that suppliers are finally catching up with demand. As supply increases, the ability to upcharge on graphics cards lessens more and more. The downward trajectory of secondhand market prices gives a clear look at where the market currently is.

With that said, it’s hard to say what this means for the next-generation wave of GPUs. The Nvidia RTX 40 series and AMD’s RDNA 3 are both to arrive this fall. One still has to wonder if suppliers will be able to keep up with what one can assume will be greater demand. However, if you’re happy with a current-gen GPU, this should all come as welcome news.

Image credit: Nvidia

Source: The Verge

Categories
Mobile Syrup

New leak suggest seven Intel GPUs will release soon

A new batch of Intel Driver updates may have leaked new information about the hardware company’s upcoming graphics card lineup.

It’s expected that the graphics card that PC builders can use will be called the A310, A380, A580, A750 and the A770. These are the same names as Intel’s mobile GPU units, but without an ‘M’ prefix at the end.

The leak also mentions something called the Intel Arc Pro A30M laptop card and an Arc Pro A40/A50, which are expected to be traditional fully-sized GPU units. I’d expect the conventional GPUs to be sold with around 8GB of RAM as a starting point with more attached to the highest-end cards, and then the ‘Pro’ models will offer more RAM. There’s also a chance that these Pro models will also pack in more or faster chips.

Nvidia does something similar with its cards. For example, you can get an RTX 3060 with 8GB of RAM for gaming, but for a workstation computer, you can also get a variant with 12GB of RAM.

A report from Digital Trends suggests that we’ll likely see the lower end, A300-series Intel GPUs appearing in pre-built PCs at the mid-point of 2022 and then the higher-end cards will start to come out after. The hesitancy of Intel to release the cards at once to the public make me think that the company still needs to put more work into the GPUs, but only time will tell if they’re competitive or not.

Source: Intel Via: Digital Trends

Categories
Mobile Syrup

Intel says it started shipping first-gen Arc GPUs to manufacturers

Intel’s Arc GPUs are getting a little closer to reality. Alongside a wealth of CPU announcements at CES 2022, Intel took a little time to provide an update on its anticipated entry into the GPU field.

During its CES 2022 keynote, Intel revealed that it had started shipping its first-gen ‘Alchemist‘ GPUs to manufacturers of desktop and laptop systems, which include Acer, Asus, Clevo, Dell, Gigabyte, Haier, HP, Lenovo, Samsung, MSI and NEC.

The Arc GPUs will mark a significant shift for Intel as they make the company’s new Xe graphics architecture available in discrete laptop and desktop GPUs. Xe, and previous Intel graphics solutions, have typically been available as integrated options added to the company’s CPUs. While integrated graphics can be capable enough for most people, they often don’t stack up to dedicated, discrete GPUs in certain workloads or in gaming.

Intel talks a big game about Arc as well. The company said that Arc graphics will offer “industry-leading” features, such as hardware-accelerated ray tracing and Xe Super Sampling (XeSS), which Intel describes as an upscaling technology powered by artificial intelligence. Another benefit to Arc will be support for Intel’s ‘Deep Link‘ technology, which should provide performance and efficiency boosts by allowing Intel CPUs and GPUs to work together.

While it’s good to see Intel’s Arc plans moving forward, The Verge points out that we’re still missing a lot of information. Manufacturers may have their hands on Arc, but there’s no word on when they’ll release computers with Intel GPUs. Further, we don’t know if or when Intel will make discrete Arc GPUs available for people to buy and integrate into their own custom-built rigs. Intel also hasn’t shared any details about specifications or cost.

That being said, Intel also shared at CES 2022 that it will require discrete Arc GPUs as part of its Evo certification program for laptops using Intel 12th Gen Core H-Series chips. With Evo laptops expected to start shipping in the first half of 2022, we may get to see Intel Arc out in the world sooner rather than later.

You can read more about Intel at CES 2022 here, or check out more news from CES 2022 here.

Source: Intel Via: The Verge