People are voicing their displeasure with Intel because Intel has taken out a free feature from their CPU — the integrated GPU. These are the same people, mind you, who complained about the performance of that free GPU.
Really?
I remember the formidable, smart, and fun Mooly Eden telling me and five or six dozen of my analyst and press friends in 2013, that he “hated GPUs.”
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| Mooly knew what the cost was and didn’t like it. (Photo: Rob Williams) |
It was as you can imagine a shocking statement to me, and maybe a few others. It wasn’t that he hated GPU technology, he hated the cost of the GPUs. “Sixty percent of the die,” he said, “goes to the GPU—60%!”
“And you know what we get paid for that?” He asked.
“Nothing, zero dollars, not a dime.”
And so it has been since Q1’10 when Intel first put the GPU in the CPU.
So Intel has been giving away 60% of their precious leading-edge silicon for nine years—over 2 billion chips, and how many times during that massive give away did anyone every say—thanks Intel. For nine years they never said thanks. And now they say WAIT—you want me to pay the same price for a CPU that DOESN’T have a GPU? What a rip off.
They say that you don’t miss something till it’s gone.
But the IGP isn’t gone, folks.
Intel has not made any indication that integrated graphics are going away. The comments on the web are in response to the F SKUs, which is simply one SKU set that has the integrated graphics disabled; there are still many that include integrated graphics and Intel has not made any announcements that imply their intent is to not provide integrated graphics in the future.
Also, Intel has more 9th gen desktop processors coming, which the company has already said publicly. There are enthusiasts that will pair their processor with a discrete graphics anyway and the F SKU will be a good option for them. And lest we forget, Intel will have its very own dGPU to offer for those situations.