| ▲ | chao- 21 hours ago |
| Comparing this against mobile dGPUs and the (finally real) DGX Spark, this feels like a latent market segment that has not arrived at its final form. I don't know what delayed the DGX Spark so long, but it granted AMD a huge boon by allowing them capture some market mindshare first. Compared to discrete GPUs (mobile or not), the advantage of a dGPU is memory bandwidth. The disadvantage of a dGPU is power draw and memory capacity—if we set aside CUDA, which I grant is a HUGE thing to just "set aside". If we mix in the small DGX Spark desktops, then those have an additional advantage in the dual 200Gb network ports that allow for RDMA across multiple boxes. One could get more from of a small stack (2, 3 or 4) of those than from the same number of Strix Halo 395 boxes. However, as sexy as my homelab-brain finds a small stack of DGX Spark boxes with RDMA, I would think that for professional use, I would rather have a GPU server (or Threadripper GPU workstation) than four DGX Spark boxes? Because the DGX Spark isn't being sold in a laptop (AFAIK, CMIIW), that is another differentiator in favor of the Strix Halo. Once again, it points to this being a weird, emerging market segment, and I expect the next generation or two will iterate towards how these capabilities really ought to be packaged. |
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| ▲ | Tuna-Fish 17 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| Next gen, AMD has the Medusa Halo with (reportedly) a 384bit LPDDR6 bus. This should get you twice the memory of what Strix Halo has with 1.7 times the throughput when using memory that's already announced, with even better modules coming later. I think with the success of Strix Halo as an inference platform, this market segment is here to stay. |
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| ▲ | karmakaze 15 hours ago | parent [-] | | I'm really excited and looking forward to this refresh. The APU spec leaks for the upcoming PS6 and XBox have some clues as well. My wishlist: more memory bandwidth, more GPU/NPU cores, actual unified memory rather than designating, more PCIe lanes. Of course there could be more/new AMD packaging magic sprinkled in too. |
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| ▲ | justincormack 17 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Fyi its not dual 200Gb its 1x 200 or 2x 100Gb |
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| ▲ | wffurr 18 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| “dGPU” usually means “discrete GPU”. Do you mean “iGPU” for “integrated GPU” instead? Strix Halo is also being marketed for gaming but the performance profile is all wrong for that. The CPU is too fast and the iGPU still not strong enough. I am sure it’s amazing at matmul though. |
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| ▲ | chao- 18 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Yes, I intended to use the term "discrete GPU" before using "dGPU" as a shorthand for that exact reason (in the second paragraph). I now see that I edited the first paragraph to use "dGPU" without first defining it as such. I also agree that they aren't for gaming (something I know little about). My comment was with respect to compute workloads, but I never specified that. Apologies. | |
| ▲ | AmVess 17 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I have one. Framework Desktop mainboard that I put into a larger ITX chassis and regular power supply. It's fine for 1440p gaming. I don't use it for that, but it would not be a bother if that was all I had. | |
| ▲ | dismalaf 15 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | From what I've seen the gaming benchmarks are fantastic. Beats the mobile 5070 for some games and settings, or slightly behind on others. While being very far ahead of every other iGPU. I have a laptop with an Nvidia GPU. Ruins battery life and makes it run very hot. I'd pay a lot for a powerful iGPU. | |
| ▲ | speed_spread 18 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | As a casual gamer I'm already okay with the RTX 3050 dGPU on my laptop. Reports put Strix Halo at RTX 4070 level which is massive for an iGPU and certainly allows for 2k single screen gaming. Hardcore gaming will always require a desktop with PCIe boards. | | |
| ▲ | lostmsu 18 hours ago | parent [-] | | Strix Halo is nowhere near RTX 4070 (desktop at least, not familiar with laptop GPUs). | | |
| ▲ | speed_spread 17 hours ago | parent [-] | | Maybe there's been some selective optimization and careful marketing but to even be in that ballpark for some games now means that more is coming. https://www.techspot.com/news/106835-amd-ryzen-strix-halo-la... | | |
| ▲ | lostmsu 13 hours ago | parent [-] | | This link is a terrible source. In one of the graphs 4060 is faster than 4070. This speaks to the quality of testing. | | |
| ▲ | kimixa 12 hours ago | parent [-] | | In some power constrained scenarios that sort of thing is often petty reproducible. Especially if the different SKUs have different power budgets. Laptop GPU naming and performance is a bit of a mess, as in the example shown (the 4060 on the Asus TUF Gaming A16 has a limit of 140w GPU+CPU, while the 4070 on the Asus Proart PX13 has 115w GPU+CPU - and even that is a "custom" non-default mode with 95w being the actual out-of-the-box limit). With wildly varying power profiles laptop graphics need to be compared by chassis (and the cooling/power supply that implies) as much as by GPU SKU. | | |
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| ▲ | linuxftw 17 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| The DGX Spark seems to have one intended usecase: local AI model development and testing. The Strix Halo is an amd64 with iGPU, it can be used for any traditional PC workload, and is a reasonable local-ai target device. For me, the Strix Halo is the first nail in the coffin of discrete GPUs inside laptops for amd64. I think Nvidia knows this, which is why they're partnering with Intel to make an iGPU setup. |
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| ▲ | InTheArena 12 hours ago | parent [-] | | I think it's beyond that even - it's for local AI toolchain model development and testing or those people who have a ore-exisitng nvidia deployment infrastructure It feels like nVidia spent a ton of money here on a piece of infrastructure (the big network pipes) that very few people will ever leverage, and that the rest of the infrastructure constrains somewhat. |
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