GPU Developments of 2023

Description

The GPU developments report our annual summary of GPU and associated developments for the year. There were quite a few surprises, a couple of disappointments, and a lot of business as usual. We saw the introduction of one new GPU supplier, taking us up to 27 if you include the IP suppliers.

This seventh edition of “GPU Developments” is a compendium of reports from our client service TechWatch, our testing service Mt. Tiburon Testing Labs; our quarterly market report on GPUs, “Market Watch;” our semi-annual report “Workstations,” and our quarterly report “Add-in Boards,” as well as excerpts from our semi-annual report “PC Gaming Hardware;” in addition to our reports and studies on mobile devices, TV gaming, , and digital content creation.

Table of Contents

• Forward 11
• INTRODUCTION 12
  • GPUs, cards, and AIBs 13
  • Where do GPUs come from? 15
  • Where do GPUs go? 16
    • Integrated vs. discrete performance 18
• HIGHLIGHTS OF THE YEAR 21
• THE FIRST QUARTER OF 2023 23
  • 1.1 Q4’22 GPU shipment 23
    • 1.1.1 Quick highlights 24
  • 1.2 2023: Change, the eternal process 27
  • 1.3 2023: Will the AIB remain in flux? 28
  • 1.4 AMD ‘in hot water’? 31
  • 1.5 AMD at CES 2023 33
  • 1.6 Intel turns CES 2023 into a family affair 38
  • 1.7 AI at the center of Nvidia’s CES 2023 announcements 41
  • 1.8 Eluktronics takes RTX 4090s on the go 45
  • 1.9 Nvidia RTX 4070 adds another AIB to the high-end segment 46
  • 1.10 Imagination claims its DXT GPU offers scalable premium ray tracing for all mobile gamers 55
  • 1.11 Loongson Zhongke 2K2000 SOC tape-out 59
  • 1.12 Imagination adds a half level 62
  • 1.13 Testing the elusive MTT S80 63
  • 1.14 This is what 37,888 AIBs look like 64
  • 1.15 Chinese GPU suppliers poised for consolidation 67
  • 1.16 Seeing the future 71
  • 1.17 The history of the GPU: From inception to AI 72
  • 1.18 Intel adopts a bi-annual cycle for dGPU introductions. 73
  • 1.19 AMD updates FidelityFX and runs Epic MetaHuman 76
  • 1.20 Chinese AIB suppliers enter mainstream reseller channel 77
  • 1.21 Tech luminary Gordon Moore passes away 78
  • 1.22 AMD’s RDNA 3 iGPU in Ryzen 7000 has surprising GPU performance 80
  • 1.23 Nvidia adds to RTX Ada Lovelace GPU family 83
• THE SECOND QUARTER OF 2023 87
  • 1.24 Q1’23 GPU shipment 89
  • 1.24.1 Quick highlights 89
  • 1.25 Current GPU challenges in technology 91
  • 1.26 Are dedicated gaming GPUs doomed? 94
  • 1.27 How many GPUs does it take to design a GPU? 95
  • 1.28 Turning your expensive GPU into a UMA slug 98
  • 1.29 Can GPU AI-enhanced games be trusted? 99
  • 1.30 A match made in mobile heaven 104
  • 1.31 WebGPU unleashes the power of your GPU to Web pages 105
  • 1.32 The AMD Radeon Pro W7000 series 107
  • 1.33 The RTX 4070, Nvidia’s latest midrange board, is put to the test 109
  • 1.34 Intel mixes up Max data center AIBs 116
  • 1.35 Nvidia’s new ray-tracing technologies expressed in Cyberpunk 2077 119
  • 1.36 Imagination gets down—enters the really low-power realm 120
  • 1.37 Nvidia introduces the first midrange add-in board from the Ada Lovelace line 122
  • 1.38 AMD releases an RDNA 3.0-based add-in board for 1080p gaming 128
  • 1.39 Intel’s new workstation AIB with the Arc Pro A60 135
  • 1.40 AMD’s Instinct about AI acceleration in the cloud—memory, lots of it 138
  • 1.41 $180,000 worth of smuggled Nvidia H100 no good for gaming 141
  • 1.42 Gamers will want, but not likely get, AMD’s big memory 146
  • 1.43 Intel exits AIB market for the A770 147
  • 1.44 Oh, joy—OneXfly, another handheld gaming machine, and a win for AMD 149
  • 1.45 Improving tomorrow’s workstations 150
  • 1.46 Nvidia compute accelerator cards 152
  • 1.47 VESA Adaptive-Sync Display Version 1.1 152
  • 1.48 Intel Drops Price of 8GB Arc A750 GPU to $199 155
  • 1.49 Intel’s XeSS 155
• THE THIRD QUARTER OF 2023 157
  • 1.50 Q3’23 GPU shipments 157
  • 1.51 Free range APIs out on the mesa do ray tracing 160
  • 1.52 GPU builder Denglin Technology gets investment from China 162
  • 1.53 Slowdown the sanctions, says SIA 164
  • 1.54 Intel ends endgame 166
  • 1.55 ASRock midrange A770 looks good 167
  • 1.56 Nvidia takes another step in its transition from Ampere to Ada 168
  • 1.57 Nvidia fills out in the middle 174
  • 1.58 More Mobo Power bro 176
  • 1.59 Will AI demand stifle new gaming GPUs? 179
  • 1.60 Khronos brings Vulkanization back to the US 182
  • 1.61 Small form-factor RTX 4060 from Lenovo 184
  • 1.62 GeForce RTX 3080 Ti With 20GB of VRAM 186
  • 1.63 AMD’s FSR 3 upscaling and Fluid Motion Frames technology 187
  • 1.64 X-Silicon was x’d before X 187
  • 1.65 If you liked 3.0, you’re going love DLSS 3.5 191
  • 1.66 Half Life 2 RTX’ed 195
• THE FOURTH QUARTER OF 2023 199
  • 1.67 AMD’s newest preview driver introduces Fluid Motion Frames 199
  • 1.68 New Intel AIBs 200
  • 1.69 Intel’s ARC 750 is one year old and keeps improving 203
  • 1.70 Intel Meteor Lake iGPU raises the bar 207
  • 1.71 Is Exynos once again facing a firing squad? 209
  • 1.72 AMD’s newest preview driver introduces Fluid Motion Frames 217
  • 1.73 What is happening in China? 218
  • 1.74 AMD’s second-gen Steam Deck APU—OLED 221
  • 1.75 AMD’s newest preview driver introduces Fluid Motion Frames 223
  • 1.76 Intel’s Arc 750 is one year old and keeps improving 224
  • 1.77 Moore Threads commits to AI GPUs and training center 228
  • 1.78 Summary of AIBs for 2023 229
  • 1.79 Nvidia 24GB RTX 4090D Dragon for China 231
• INDEX