Raja Koduri, head of Intel Graphics, leaves Team Blue to found an AI gaming company to shine a spotlight on Intel’s discrete graphics dream future.
It was announced yesterday by Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger. twitter (opens in new tab) Koduri’s departure comes after five years at Intel, where he recently headed Intel’s AXG graphics unit, responsible for manufacturing the company’s discrete GPUs that rival the best graphics cards from AMD and Nvidia.
According to Tom’s Hardware, Koduri left the company to found a generative AI gaming software startup and was promoted to executive vice president in 2022 before being put back in the role of chief architect, a role he assumed after joining Intel. I was. 2017 from AMD’s Radeon Graphics Unit.
Koduri’s time at Intel has been a bit rocky the last few years due to the struggles Intel had with its Intel Arc Alchemist graphics cards. Despite the decent reviews given by the few reviewers available, the new graphics cards are hard to find, and those who do manage to get their hands on one complain about the performance associated with the Intel-developed drivers. I ran into a problem with card. Intel has since fixed some of these issues, but there is still work to be done.
Gelsinger’s message made no mention of a successor or future for Intel’s AXG graphics group, so it remains to be seen how that work will continue.
Raja Koduri’s departure is the perfect time to reset Intel
Intel Arc Alchemist had a lot of hype and quite a few disappointments. Many of us are skeptical of this effort because the AMD vs Nvidia dichotomy in the GPU space could really lead to some confusion and there aren’t that many players in the GPU fray thanks to the sheer cost. I was very much hoping for Intel’s success in entry.
That cost may be something Team Blue hopes to cut in the coming months. I sincerely hope that Raja Koduri’s departure is not a sign that something will happen in that regard.
With Nvidia’s GTC 2023 event in full swing and Nvidia seemingly committed to AI and cloud services, I’m very pessimistic about the future of Nvidia GeForce graphics cards.
Market pressures will heavily rely on Nvidia to invest in AI at the expense of the consumer products sector. That means more workstation GPUs and less graphics cards for gamers. The Nvidia RTX 5070 will likely still see the light of day in a few years, but given the progress AI is making, I doubt we’ll see the Nvidia RTX 6070.
That leaves AMD and Intel Team Red make some great products but the lack of real competition will only stifle innovation in the long term and AMD is the very positive that we’re seeing If you’re going to continue the trend, you need to light a fire under that ass.
And given the steep price increases of the best AMD graphics cards in recent years, it’s hard to call AMD a budget option anymore. No, something else is needed to fill that gap in the market, and Intel is very well positioned to serve that real need. I definitely hope so, and Koduri’s exit should provide an opportunity for Intel to double down on its discrete graphics card ambitions, rather than abandon them.
Intel Arc Alchemist may have been half-hearted, but Battlemage can still succeed
New product launches are hard, and Intel Arc Alchemist seems like a decent enough product for a first try. It could definitely get better, but what we really need is the next Intel GPU beats it.
The Intel graphics team has a lot of love for Arc Alchemist for obvious reasons, and there seems to be a genuine love between Koduri and the team he leads. Adversity tends to create it, especially when the world seems to exclude you from the jump.
But all things considered, Intel’s graphics team may need new leadership to make their next GPU a success. Its GPU series, codenamed Battlemage, is definitely on its way, and this reset shrugs off the challenges of Alchemist, learns the lessons it needs to learn, and is a strong contender for the best cheap graphics and a great time to get hot. Opportunity cards that hit the market within a year.
And every manufacturer wants to come out here claiming the title of ‘the best out there’ but let’s be real it’s the Nvidia RTX 4090 and it’s like 5 people looking to buy Most others are looking for something affordable that offers the next-gen gaming experience they’ve been missing out on for the past few years.
Arc Battlemage can more easily achieve that goal and make a real claim as a viable alternative to Nvidia or AMD. It also earns the appreciation of many gamers who feel increasingly shut out by these companies.
