Guys, human Sacrifice is taking place, dogs and cats are living together, mass hysteria. At least that's what it feels like should be happening. AMD and Intel, two of the staunchest rivals in the computing hardware game, have announced a new partnership that will see AMD's graphics chips bundled alongside an Intel CPU on the same die to create a powerful new integrated graphics solutions for laptops.
The new H-Series chips will still include Intel's own integrated graphics, but will pair them up with an AMD discrete GPU, meaning that during higher intensity tasks, the more powerful graphical processor can be leveraged. To make this possible, Intel needed to leverage a new technology it terms Embedded Multi-Die Interconnect Bridge" (EMIB). It's a short-range, interconnect that lets it join different chips as part of single package (thanks Ars). It is also said to have a positive impact on efficiency, making the Intel/AMD hybrid design as much as half as power-hungry as its counterparts.
Alongside the new graphics chip is a cache of second-generation high bandwidth memory (HBM2), which should provide serious bandwidth for the discrete graphics chip, giving it comparable performance to mid-tier graphics cards.
This is a line in the sand that's been drawn to counter the dominance of Nvidia in the discrete GPU space. While typically Intel CPUs have been paired up with Nvidia graphics chips for laptop graphics - considering they were typically more powerful and cooler to run - that's no longer going to be the case.
It could give AMD the real graphical leg up it needs to start producing top-tier graphics cards once again that threaten the performance crown Nvidia has held for so long.
