Intel's plan to enter the market of discrete graphics cards in 2020 with the 'Arctic Sound' line of GPUs may well shake the long-standing NVIDIA/AMD duopoly for good. However, that doesn't mean they'll be able to be immediately competitive at the higher end of the spectrum.
In an interview conducted at CES 2019with IndiaTimes (a website that is not accessible in several countries without using a VPN), Alienware Founder and General Manager Frank Azor expressed this very opinion.
Having the number of gaming products come into the gaming market, as we've had in recent years has made this the best time to be a gamer ever, you know. Twenty years ago there were just a handful of gaming systems and gaming technologies available out there. And it was tough to be a gamer, it was expensive. You didn't exactly have gaming keyboards, gaming mice, gaming monitors, it was tough.
Today, there's a broad spectrum of choices available to you at all types of price points, so more solutions in the graphics space is going to only help gamers. So we embrace the added option of having Intel graphics come into the picture. That's great.
The challenge of besting NVIDIA and AMD's gaming performance is enormous. And it's not my expectation that that's going to happen immediately with the Intel GPU. My expectation is that Intel will come in with a good product, and it will serve its place in the market. I don't think they will best an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080Ti graphics card. I think if anybody has that expectation, they're going to be disappointed. If Intel does it, that'll be amazing. But I don't think that's reasonable. I mean Intel is an extremely capable company that I'm sure will produce some really good product. But I think it's unrealistic to think that they're going to best the likes of NVIDIA or AMD immediately.
Do you agree with Frank Azor? Let us know by voting in the poll below and writing your opinion in the comments.
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30px;border-radius:3px;background:#eb0254;transition:background .2s}input[type="submit"].dem-button:hover,a.dem-button:hover,.dem-button:hover{background:#eb0254}input[type="submit"].dem-button:active,a.dem-button:active,.dem-button:active{background:#21935a;box-shadow:0 3px #21935a inset}a.dem-button:visited{color:#fff}Is it really unrealistic to expect Intel to best NVIDIA and AMD with its first generation of discrete GPUs?Yes, it won't happen for many years 52%, 661 vote
661 vote 52%
661 vote - 52% of all votes
Yes, but they'll catch up quickly 36%, 451 vote
451 vote 36%
451 vote - 36% of all votes
No, Intel will be competitive right away 12%, 152 votes
152 votes 12%
152 votes - 12% of all votes
Total Votes: 1264
January 29, 2019 - January 31, 2019
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In other Alienware news, the company showcased an impressive 55" OLED 4K@120Hz gaming monitor at CES 2019. It's due in the second half of 2019 and we're looking forward to getting more details about it, including the full specifications and pricing.