GeForce Partner Program may be to blame for lack of Kaby Lake-G products

[Nowak]

Sauce: https://www.notebookcheck.net/Where-are-all-the-Kaby-Lake-G-laptops-Nvidia-s-GeForce-Partner-Program-may-be-to-blame.300748.0.html

 

About 5 months ago, AMD and Intel unveiled the inconceivable: an Intel CPU with an AMD GPU with 4GB of its own HBM2 VRAM, on a multi-chip module, showcasing the CPUs and several products running the hardware at CES 2018. However, in the months following CES, Kaby Lake-G is almost nowhere to be seen in consumer products. Meanwhile, Intel's Coffee Lake-H was introduced earlier this month with a whole range of laptops featuring the i7-8750H and GeForce graphics to boot instead. What gives?

 

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Intel's Coffee Lake-H platform was unveiled earlier this month and it was accompanied by a deluge of laptops ready to ship with the new hexa-core processors. Three of these laptops have already made it to our labs including the Asus Zephyrus M GM501, Gigabyte Aero 15X, and Aorus X9 DT with Core i7-8750H and Core i9-8950HK CPU options. In contrast, Intel's Kaby Lake-G platform was unveiled in January and there are barely any laptops available with the Intel-AMD CPUs even after almost half a year later. What is going on?

Can you guess who could be to blame for this? Our friends at Nvidia, of course.

 

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We've spoken to three independent and reliable sources close to Notebookcheck and they have all suggested the same reasoning - Nvidia is strongly responsible for keeping Kaby Lake-G from proliferating. Factor in the loud rumors about the anti-competitive terms of Nvidia's GPP, the rumors of HP and Dell keeping their distance from the program, and AMD's own VP acknowledging the leaks and they all strongly point to Nvidia putting a tight lid on the Kaby Lake-G platform.

GeForce Partner Program is affecting Intel as well as AMD, because of Kaby Lake-G. You would think that OEMs would be all over the marriage of Intel and AMD on a single die, but... so far the opposite has been true, thanks to GPP. Compared with Coffee Lake-H, only 4 OEMs have signed up for Kaby Lake-G, including Intel itself, and of the Kaby Lake-G products available, one isn't out yet and two aren't laptops.

 

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To date, there have only been 4 major products announced with Kaby Lake-G: The Dell XPS 15 9575, 2018 HP Spectre x360 15, Intel Hades Canyon NUC, and the Chuwi HiGame mini PC. Two of these are not even laptops, the HP and Chuwi systems are not yet shipping, and the NUC is solely an Intel product.

HP and Dell are the only notable OEMs manufacturing products based around Kaby Lake-G. MSI, Lenovo, Asus, Gigabyte, et al. are silent about the processors existing. Again, you'd think that OEMs would be all over two of the biggest rivals in the industry partnering up. It's a shame because Kaby Lake-G, with its Vega M graphics, delivers performance almost as fast as the GTX 1050 and GTX 1060 Max-Q without requiring as big of a footprint in the laptop and outputting less heat. CPU performance, meanwhile, is directly comparable to the i7-7700HQ and i7-7820HK.

 

While impressions of what Kaby Lake-G products have been released have been positive, its success will depend on the GeForce Partner Program, sadly.

 

Thoughts? Questions? Concerns? Linus Torvalds giving Nvidia the bird gifs?

[porina]

Are we going to blame GPP for everything that doesn't happen now? Do we know how much KL-G costs compared to similar equivalent of Intel+nv GPU? I did fear when I saw the NUCs it was too expensive for the performance level, the only advantage it really gave was space saving for smaller form factors.

[AskTJ]

Anti competition for nVidia. Wanted to take away the competition and take over the market.

[SquintyG33Rs]

Turnip

 

 

 

no but seriously this is kinda sad but i also didn't expect the kabylake G to be very wide spread.... idk but the OEM's have been very shy from using AMD since buldozer. it sells less? who knows

[Dabombinable]

Still not regretting my GTX 650ti 2GB after dealing with a Geforce 7100Go/Quadro NVS110M up until 2014. And by extension my GTX 970.

[Nowak]

3 minutes ago, porina said:

Are we going to blame GPP for everything that doesn't happen now? Do we know how much KL-G costs compared to similar equivalent of Intel+nv GPU? I did fear when I saw the NUCs it was too expensive for the performance level, the only advantage it really gave was space saving for smaller form factors.

GPP affects AMD right now and will affect Intel when Arctic Sound launches in 2020, so... yes ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[mr moose]

Intel sales are down, must be GPP. 

[Jurrunio]

I think it's because Kaby Lake G is an unproven step and companies are being cautious with it. If KLG is that interesting, companies will still sell them without the gaming brand or use a different gaming brand. Ultimately, companies dont say no to more money.

[mr moose]

1 minute ago, Jurrunio said:

I think it's because Kaby Lake G is an unproven step and companies are being cautious with it. If KLG is that interesting, companies will still sell them without the gaming brand or use a different gaming brand. Ultimately, companies dont say no to more money.

Not only that, but they don't say no to Intel.  It's easy to sell a laptop without an nvidia GPU but try selling one without the worlds most wanted CPU.

[Nowak]

13 minutes ago, mr moose said:

Intel sales are down, must be GPP. 

In this case it's not so much Intel as it is AMD.

[mr moose]

1 minute ago, NowakVulpix said:

In this case it's not so much Intel as it is AMD.

Do you think Intel is going to sit idle and watch this conspiracy play out?

[Nowak]

Just now, mr moose said:

Do you think Intel is going to sit idle and watch this conspiracy play out?

No, of course not.

[iamdarkyoshi]

41 minutes ago, NowakVulpix said:

on a single die

Not really a single die as much as it is a single substrate.

 

Each die is a piece of silicon. If there's three pieces of silicon (I'd assume HBM, GPU, and CPU) then there's three dies.

 

The PCB under them is the substrate.

[Nowak]

2 minutes ago, iamdarkyoshi said:

Not really a single die as much as it is a single substrate.

 

Each die is a piece of silicon. If there's three pieces of silicon (I'd assume HBM, GPU, and CPU) then there's three dies.

 

The PCB under them is the substrate.

Multi-chip module then. It's 3AM, I'm tired, gimme a break

[asus killer]

especially in laptops were people have less knowledge than with desktops, people prefer a laptop with a nvidia sticker. Everybody knows this. I may be wrong but that is the real reason. 

[KarathKasun]

14 minutes ago, asus killer said:

especially in laptops were people have less knowledge than with desktops, people prefer a laptop with a nvidia sticker. Everybody knows this. I may be wrong but that is the real reason. 

Except all the people who got laptops with NV stickers that then ate dirt after a year or two...

[Froody129]

22 minutes ago, asus killer said:

especially in laptops were people have less knowledge than with desktops, people prefer a laptop with a nvidia sticker. Everybody knows this. I may be wrong but that is the real reason. 

Yup. Even if it's a crappy dual core "i7" with a GT 710 people go crazy for the stickers without knowing what the hardware actually is

[leadeater]

So we're in the middle of DRAM shortages, GPU shortages, this is a new product with different hardware vendors and it's somehow GPP as the most likely reason for not many products on the market?

 

As much as I don't like GPP this isn't the reason. On top of the above reasons it takes a long time to fully validate a new product like this and it also has to be deemed the most suitable hardware for the product in the first place.

[mr moose]

4 minutes ago, leadeater said:

So we're in the middle of DRAM shortages, GPU shortages, this is a new product with different hardware vendors and it's somehow GPP as the most likely reason for not many products on the market?

 

As much as I don't like GPP this isn't the reason. On top of the above reasons it takes a long time to fully validate a new product like this and it also has to be deemed the most suitable hardware for the product in the first place.

Plus the latest reviews don't exactly hail the G's performance above the already popular and sometimes cheaper CL+dGPU laptops already out there.

[leadeater]

4 minutes ago, mr moose said:

Plus the latest reviews don't exactly hail the G's performance above the already popular and sometimes cheaper CL+dGPU laptops already out there.

 

[Guest]

16 minutes ago, leadeater said:

So we're in the middle of DRAM shortages, GPU shortages, this is a new product with different hardware vendors and it's somehow GPP as the most likely reason for not many products on the market?

 

As much as I don't like GPP this isn't the reason. On top of the above reasons it takes a long time to fully validate a new product like this and it also has to be deemed the most suitable hardware for the product in the first place.

Would have hoped it would be near the end. I miss 2011 prices for $40 for 8GB RAM. :'( 

 

You can still get that on FB pages though, but it wont be first hand. Sucks!!

[asus killer]

Intel with their integrated graphics and AMD just in general burnt so many bridges with consumers over the last years that it isn't in a day this will change. For most average joe they are toxic brands.

[AlTech]

On 4/25/2018 at 2:44 AM, asus killer said:

Intel with their integrated graphics and AMD just in general burnt so many bridges with consumers over the last years that it isn't in a day this will change. For most average joe they are toxic brands.

Yes but Intel's brand recognition is strong. There is no reason outside of the GPP that OEMs would choose to stay away from it.

 

@NowakVulpix It's actually kind of hilarious that Ryzen Mobile is more successful than Kaby Lake G at this point.

 

Neither of them are doing great atm but Ryzen Mobile is doing better.

[mr moose]

5 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

There is no reason outside of the GPP that OEMs would choose to stay away from it.

Lack of supply, Product cost/margin, performance and marketability are all pretty good reasons to not invest in it.  

[AlTech]

On 4/25/2018 at 2:38 AM, leadeater said:

snip

Actually yes. I'm very sure. Before the GPP, OEMs were not as close with Nvidia and had no qualms about using Intel's own solutions to graphics issues.

 

Like with the Iris Pro Graphics MSI laptop. And MSI, Gigabyte, Aorus, what do they all have in common? They all have gaming brands which are signed on with the GPP meaning they can't be seen making laptops with AMD Graphics in their gaming products.

 

Asus could probably try to make it work in non gaming branded laptop but I don't think they'd want to risk it.

 

On 4/25/2018 at 5:12 AM, mr moose said:

Lack of supply,

Do you have evidence pointing to Supply issues?

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Product cost/margin,

We don't know the cost but we can guess it's probably a bit more expensive than the regular Intel CPUs.

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performance

The Performance of the chip is actually quite nice so I don't know how this could be an issue.

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and marketability are all pretty good reasons to not invest in it.  

The only way this isn't marketable is under GPP.