Linux devs discover that Intel Arc GPU firmware updates need an Intel CPU

[Trelligan]

Title says it all, really. Plenty of people want to update their GPU, and lots of those will have AMD CPUs. This is a severe limitation since if anything needs firmware updates, it's the Intel GPUs.

 

Mandatory article clipping: [Link below]

Quote

 

In our review of Intel's Arc GPUs, we were generally impressed by their performance for the price, especially as a first-generation product. But buyers have plenty of potential caveats to consider, including unstable drivers, inconsistent performance, and a couple of weird problems that you need to dig around in your computer's BIOS settings to resolve.

Linux developers working on Arc support appear to have uncovered another oddity about the cards. According to developer Richard Hughes (as reported by Phoronix), updating the firmware on Arc GPUs appears to be handled by the Intel Management Engine, a small microcontroller that is only included in PCs with Intel processors. Hughes ran into the problem specifically in the context of IBM's POWER CPU architecture, but it seems to make firmware updates impossible on any non-Intel platform, including those based on AMD or Arm CPUs.

 

 

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/11/intel-arc-gpu-firmware-updates-appear-to-require-an-intel-cpu-at-least-for-now/

Edited November 5, 2022 by LogicalDrm
Quote added

[Arika]

34 minutes ago, Trelligan said:

Plenty of people want to update their GPU

Do they?

I don't think I've ever touched any of my GPUs firmware all the years I've had one

[tikker]

How often do we expect to do a firmware update on a GPU? Unless it came with drivers and I didn't notice, I don't remember ever doing this.

[igormp]

I don't really care about firmware updates, I never had to do so with any GPU, I'm more concerned with the fact that it currently only supports x86 and won't compile for other ISAs.

[Senzelian]

 

[heimdali]

I thought these cards were designed to work only with Intel CPUs without suffering from severe performance reductions?  And why would anyone buy a graphics card that locks them in to having Intel CPUs?

 

[porina]

Firmware updates on GPUs I think are pretty rare, at least for regular users. The only recent example I know of is for some early 30 series GPUs which needed an update for ReBAR support. The majority of the production had it from the factory.

 

50 minutes ago, heimdali said:

I thought these cards were designed to work only with Intel CPUs without suffering from severe performance reductions?

The only requirement for performance is ReBAR support. 

[heimdali]

1 hour ago, porina said:

The only requirement for performance is ReBAR support. 

And AMD CPUs have that, too?  I might have misunderstood what I read; I wanted to find out what happened about the unresolvable hardware problem these cards were supposed to have a while ago and only found out that these cards have been released and have some disadvantages ...

 

[Imbadatnames]

2 hours ago, heimdali said:

I thought these cards were designed to work only with Intel CPUs without suffering from severe performance reductions?  And why would anyone buy a graphics card that locks them in to having Intel CPUs?

 

No they required Resizable BAR which works on Intel and Nvidia GPUs with Intel or AMD CPUs. What AMD calls SAM is essentially the same but only works with AMD 5000 CPUs and 6000 GPUs or higher. AMD is the one locking people in. 

[heimdali]

9 minutes ago, Imbadatnames said:

No they required Resizable BAR which works on Intel and Nvidia GPUs with Intel or AMD CPUs. What AMD calls SAM is essentially the same but only works with AMD 5000 CPUs and 6000 GPUs or higher. AMD is the one locking people in. 

Hm, that's confusing.  Why would AMD need SAM, whatever that is, when there's rebar already?  Do I get a disadvantage when I have an Intel CPU and an AMD graphics card?

 

[Imbadatnames]

3 minutes ago, heimdali said:

Hm, that's confusing.  Why would AMD need SAM, whatever that is, when there's rebar already?  Do I get a disadvantage when I have an Intel CPU and an AMD graphics card?

 

SAM came first and AMD tried to lock it to 5000 series CPUs and 6000 series GPUs. NVidia then came out with rebar which was open so AMD had to open up SAM to be able to use Intel CPUs too. 
 

No. 

[wasab]

I wouldn’t mind all team blue in my next build

[tim0901]

2 hours ago, Imbadatnames said:

SAM came first and AMD tried to lock it to 5000 series CPUs and 6000 series GPUs. NVidia then came out with rebar which was open so AMD had to open up SAM to be able to use Intel CPUs too. 
 

No. 

* Rebar was a part of the PCIe spec for years prior to either manufacturer implementing it. AMD decided to slap a marketing label to this feature (SAM) when they started supporting it with their new Radeon 6000 series GPUs, alongside a load of claims about how it allowed you to unlock extra performance by pairing a 6000 series GPU with a new 5000 series Ryzen CPU, as if it was some advantage you got for going all-AMD.

 

Nvidia and Intel then rushed to support rebar on their own platforms, forcing AMD to acknowledge it wasn't actually an AMD-specific feature at all. AMD also quietly opened it up to Ryzen 3000 CPUs later down the line.

[Imbadatnames]

4 minutes ago, tim0901 said:

* Rebar was a part of the PCIe spec for years prior to either manufacturer implementing it. AMD decided to slap a marketing label to this feature (SAM) when they started supporting it with their new Radeon 6000 series GPUs, alongside a load of claims about how it allowed you to unlock extra performance by pairing a 6000 series GPU with a new 5000 series Ryzen CPU, as if it was some advantage you got for going all-AMD.

 

Nvidia and Intel then rushed to support rebar on their own platforms, forcing AMD to acknowledge it wasn't actually an AMD-specific feature at all. AMD also quietly opened it up to Ryzen 3000 CPUs later down the line.

Which is what I said, just in a more concise manner. 

[Quackers101]

I remember intel maybe talking about that, but dont remember much.
If it was about firmware and other features, like deeplink and whatever else.

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

10 hours ago, Trelligan said:

Plenty of people want to update their GPU, and lots of those will have AMD CPUs

Wait people are getting GPU firmware updates? I thought they were just a myth. 

[NF-A12x25]

20 hours ago, Imbadatnames said:

Which is what I said, just in a more concise manner. 

nah, you made out like it was something AMD came up with. They didn’t, they were just the first to implement it following the PCIe specification, and that’s what the other person corrected you on.

[Imbadatnames]

1 hour ago, NF-A12x25 said:

nah, you made out like it was something AMD came up with. They didn’t, they were just the first to implement it following the PCIe specification, and that’s what the other person corrected you on.

AMD implemented it first and marketed it as their own technology even though it wasn’t. It also only worked with AMD 5000 series CPUs at the time through a software lock. 

[Mark Kaine]

On 11/4/2022 at 10:42 PM, tikker said:

How often do we expect to do a firmware update on a GPU? Unless it came with drivers and I didn't notice, I don't remember ever doing this.

well, not often but just recently 3000 series cards (amd too, perhaps?) got bios updates en mass (for "rebar") and as mentioned in the op the new intel gpus could likely benefit from a bios update in the future (in case intel figures something out)

 

also its just a weird way of gatekeeping on intels part and not a good look.

 

 

[Mark Kaine]

On 11/5/2022 at 12:33 AM, Caroline said:

Uhh... no. Unless there's a BIG problem

generally true! but we just recently (last year?) had a huge wave of posts and news about "Vbios" updates regarding rebar (sam as amd calls it) and people were all over the place and excited about it... so its a bit weird nobody remembers all of the sudden anymore  : p

 

I did not update my "Vbios" yet btw, and im not sure i will... seems needlessly risky and the "instructions" from GIGABYTE are abysmal... 

 

On 11/5/2022 at 12:33 AM, Caroline said:

I'm not an Intel shill, nor I'm paid by Intel,

Same!  

[Sauron]

odd move, even if it's not a big deal one has to wonder why Intel would deliberately restrict their market while they're still the new kid in town. I doubt anyone would be convinced to get an Intel CPU just because their ARC GPUs get better support there; instead they might not get an ARC because they want an AMD system.

[Erioch]

I think I've had several vbios updates on my EVGA 3080 since I bought it.  Most notably, the rebar update.  EVGAs software handles all of it, though.  

[tikker]

3 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

well, not often but just recently 3000 series cards (amd too, perhaps?) got bios updates en mass (for "rebar") and as mentioned in the op the new intel gpus could likely benefit from a bios update in the future (in case intel figures something out)

 

also its just a weird way of gatekeeping on intels part and not a good look.

 

 

Is it intentional gatekeeping though? Or did they just build on what they knew and had on hand.

[Mark Kaine]

Just now, tikker said:

Is it intentional gatekeeping though? Or did they just build on what they knew and had on hand.

yeah... it just looks very much like beta testing all around... doubt they'd lock it to intel cpus indefinitely... not if they want to seriously compete 

[Zomeguy]

Well the article has been updated with a reply from Intel that you can update the firmware on AMD systems as well.

Personally I think I only updated a video card bios once.