AMD say “PC ports of next-generation console titles are likely to struggle” on Intel tech

Intel are heralding their new Haswell processor architecture as a game-changer for gaming ultrabooks and small form factor gaming machines. Their competitors AMD predictably have serious doubts about Intel’s ability to compete when it comes to PC gaming.

[ThatEnglishDude]

Can't we all just get along?

[HammadTheBeast]

Not really. Intel's always been that high end ****, charging more and saying its better, and now AMD is catching up and showing them whats up.

[kB0]

That comment is FOS^

They "won" by product licensing not by tech lol. Intel is still dominant both in mobile + desktop market.

Trust me with the extra power that Intel CPUs pump they will make up for the difference in arch:)

So no, most ppl won't upgrade to AMD merely to play ports slightly better, if at all since performance difference is pretty big sometimes. I see intel controlling until AMD finally releases something similar to their XP series which were so much cheaper than intel but not that much weaker:)).

AMD has gone south since Phenom, their terrible Real Quad cores that didn't perform as well as the fake quad cores Intel had, and they were all factory broken:)

I personally was a huge AMD fan and Ati fan till they both fucked me with the Ati 2000 series HD (bought the 500$ 2900 XT which was worse then the 300$ 8800 GTS 320, and the 400$ phenom that was worse than the 350$ core 2 quad Q6600, much worse! Returned both and bought a 8800 GTS 320 and a Q6600 :), never looked back at ATI or AMD, Until 500 series by ATI which rocked:))

[nirwanda]

@kbo if all next generation games are programmed with HSA and offloading some gpu tasks to the cpu then a good apu with a good gpu running in crossfire may be the way to go.
And intel and nvidia are scared of that scenario

[Ju]

Crossfire doesn't help with HSA. Cycle times for CPU-GPU-CPU are the issue, with HSA. And with that, sharing pointers between GPU and CPU. Neither Trinity nor Richland can do this at this time, btw. Hasswell can share caches AFAIK. But it still hardly reaches Richlands compute performance.

PS4 is in a complete different ballpark. Richland is a 384 shader core GPU vs. a ~1200 cores GPU in the PS4. That already 3-4x advantage of the PS4.

Than you have 176GB/s bandwidth vs. a max of 30GB/s with the fastest DDR you can get today (I could actually measure around ~30GB/s with overclocked and 2133MHz DDR3 on my 5800k).

And eventually, you can't address the whole memory on current desktop APUs. You can't assign more than 2GB at this time.

Hasswell might win the CPU benchmarks, but it hardly beats the latest Richland in GPU performance. The next step will be Kaveri which will probably double Richlands performance and implement shared address space. But - even in it's fastest configuration it will probably top of a 50-60GB/s (not with DDR3 ram, though) and AMD will probably still keep the core count down at ~400.

But AMD is shooting themselves into the foot by belittling intel here. PS4 games won't work well on APU based desktops either. OTOH Hasswell is intel's fastest GPU where AMD still has discrete parts.

[DeadlyFire]

exclusive game drivers for AMD APUs likely will be the kicker that pushes them back up in CPU sales.

[Qrphe]

Since AMD is pretty much getting ALL the console dev support they'll be dominating also PC game support. Games will be GPU-intensive with the CPU doing not as much work (CPUs are Intel's specialization after all).

[2pacalypsenow]

GPU's already do that ,you can run any game at full settings at 1080p and above withan i3 or i5 and a GTX Titan and enough ram ,only games like MMO's and RPG's require great CPUs and intel blows AMD away in terms of CPUs , and if AMD is stating that intel will struggle cuz games won't need CPUs as much then AMD will suffer more since their CPUs are worse and even less people will buy them

[thezeldadoth]

you didn't read the article. Its not about intel's cpu.

[2pacalypsenow]

I did read it i was just commenting on Qrphe comment. The article talks about apu's

[DeadlyFire]

Intel's CPUs are APUs now and they are not perfect. They have decent graphics push behind them, but no real drivers that push it out there to work like AMD's do. Reason why? They have no graphics card experience. They are aiming for that next though.

AMD is using the console business to their advantage. They could take a full High end swing at Intel at some point. AMD's new rumored 5 Ghz CPU likely will be the first test stab at Intel to see where they are and move up from that point.

[rainslacker]

I don't think it really matters since PC's don't allow low level access to the hardware for games. It'll still have to run through an executable that works on top of an operating system that supplies it's own drivers and SDK's. PC ports will always be programmed to those drivers and SDK's, and not the hardware itself.

So in this case, whichever processor can run those things better, will come out ahead.

In response to the article, whichever APU can perform better within it's own cores will have the advantage. Can't comment on if AMD is accurate in their assessment of the Intel APU though.

In regards to integrated graphics chips, yeah he's probably right. Intel isn't known for making strong integrated GPU's. Not sure right now how Jaguar will effect all that.

[nirwanda]

While low level access is not important to pc games, how the new version of direct X is programmed is.
If they go down the hsa route and then ps4/xbone game engines do too then game devs won't spend the time and money to make a version without HSA

[Drummerdude41]

The title is misleading. It implies all Intel Cpu's but the article actually reflects that it is only talking about the apu units between the two companies. And of course amd has the better apu cause that's where half of their staff resources have been the past 3 years but Intel still has better cpu's for a traditional cpu+dedicated gfc setup. In years to come like maybe 2017 apu's might be powerful enough to handle high def gaming by themselves but currently they still lack the power a true gaming rig setup offers. I hope amd makes some breakthroughs because apus are much easier and cheaper to make which would open the door for many gamers who are scared or can't budget the pc gaming price. I am a pc gamer myself and i role intel + nvidia nowadays but i know amd has intelligence and drive in their company . I rememberwWhen the athlon 64 line came out and it blew intel out of the water, I can't wait for that kind of competition to resurface.

[dcbronco]

I think that will change in the next year or two. Once APU become fully HSA units and developers start to program specifically for them, the way games are made will change. That is what he's saying. I believe that. Once consoles prove the ability of APUs if software is geared to the design, people will see that they offer more than we have seen in the past. The games offered on Xbox One and PS4 will look better than anything Intel can offer at a comparable price. And once they rework the desktop APUs to be fully HSA units, I believe the same will be the case for them as well. Add context switching for discrete GPUs and Intel will have nothing that competes.

Larrabee was Intel's attempt to compete and it failed. And Haswell hasn't done anything to show the improvements they need to stay ahead.

[Coach_McGuirk]

Drummerdude41, thanks for the spot-on comment.

[SignifiedSix91]

I'll still take an Intel CPU over anything from AMD.

But I do prefer their cards over Nvidias.

[HammadTheBeast]

Other than the heat issue, not much of a problem if you can get a proper air fan/cooler.

But I agree.

[Allsystemgamer]

While nvidia is the leading powerhouse the performance over price simply makes AMD better in that respect. It's why I'm going dual 8970ms as opposed to dual gtx 680s in my school laptop. Before u flame me I have a tower as well. The price diff between the 2 set ups is well over 1000$ and the power difference is slim.

[SignifiedSix91]

Lol I won't be flaming you. People have a right to their own opinion!

Sounds like a damn good laptop!

I just ordered a 7980 for my rig. Using an i7 with it.

Can't wait to play bf4 on it :)

[thechosenone]

AMD said with an evil grin. heh

[_QQ_]

Intels CPUs over AMD's anyday.

[wishingW3L]

they are talking about GPUs though and everybody knows that Intel's integrated cards are like the worst of the worst. But when it comes to CPUs then it's obvious that Intel > AMD always.

[Letros]

Watch out, Intel's HD 5200 is on par with a GT 650 M at half the wattage.

[SignifiedSix91]

The intel HD series really isn't that bad.

I have a toshiba laptop with intel HD 4000 graphics and it manages to handle most games I throw at it.

It manages metro 2043 on low and never dips below 30fps.

[STK026]

If you intend to play games with an integrated GPU setup, yes, an intel setup will struggle more than an AMD one. Obviously, if you're serious about PC gaming, you will have a dedicated GPU. So far, even a core i5 CPU from intel can trash a high end FX series from AMD CPU wise, and I highly doubt things are about to change.

When it comes to a CPU, I always go with intel (unless I'm short on cash), I am however interested to see if in the near future, AMD GPUs will have a significant advantage over nVidia's. In the past, AMD (and ATi) had pretty bad driver issues, and even some games with the Gaming Evolved branding performed better on nVidia's offerings.

I wish AMD the best in the future, but from my personal experience, intel comes at a premium price, but it's usually well worth it. But seriously, claiming console ports will struggle on intel's integrated graphics shouldn't be considered news, as pretty much everyone knew that already.

[Agent_hitman]

The assumption seems believable since th BIG 3's hardwares are AMD based.

[SonyPS4]

I am no fanboy of either Intel or AMD. If AMD is better suited for PC gaming this time around I'll go with them. If I had a choice I would go with Intel, but I'll be happy to adapt to AMD for gaming.

[TABSF]

AMD is just saying this hoping for more CPU sales

Hardcore AMD fans will tell you that Intel are either, just behind, just better or not that much better are not being entirely true to themselves.

Intel has dominated the CPU market since Core 2 Duo was released and since then their has been no comparison.
AMD are competing on price but that's about it.

If you get a FX - 8150 or FX - 8350 then expect to compete with i5 2500K, 3570K or 4670K at best and its literally just 8150 and 8350.
Then on Intel side there is processors back on the old 1156 and 1366 platform that can compete with them.
Such as i7 880 and i7 990X

Truth is i7 2600K, 2700K, 3770K and 4770K just destroy FX - 8150 and 8350. Mentioning the LGA 2011 processor just adds insult to injury. To make it even worse single threaded AMD old Phenom X4 and X6 chips are faster than FX 4xxx and 6xxx :/

What is even worse for AMD is that Intel beat them on performance and power consumption, like I said the only angle AMD has over Intel is price.

[aquamala]

these APUs have never been good compared to discrete GPUs, they will struggle even on current gen titles.

[clouds5]

If AMD wants to make money in the pc gaming market they should release a statement saying: Look gamers, if you want to play next gen games on pc buy this CPU and this gpu from us and everything will run smooth. That's what we gamers want to hear.
I hope phenom2 x4 and radeon 7850 will be enough for 1080p at the beginning... Theoretically it should (throughput wise) but it depends on optimisation...