The disruptive Google Stadia streaming service made a hell of a splash, not solely on the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco but in addition on the inventory market. And I’m not simply speaking about Google right here both; one of many greatest winners from the entire Stadia pleasure has been AMD. On the again of the merest point out of Radeon GPUs being on the coronary heart of the Stadia datacentre tech, and with Dr. Lisa Su namechecked and sat within the viewers on the Google presser, AMD’s share worth rocketed 20% from its place to begin forward of the announcement.
That’s large information, and a severe fillip for AMD’s enterprise as an entire. The firm is offering the graphical heartbeat of what may very well be one of the vital disruptive platform releases in gaming historical past, and is reaping the advantages off the again of it.
AMD was one of many few companions Google talked about on-stage on the reveal occasion – alongside just a few middleware distributors, comparable to Havok – and that was as a result of it’s the one offering the important thing know-how. But not all of it.
Because AMD was the one {hardware} producer Google namechecked in San Fran I mechanically assumed it was offering each the customized Radeon datacentre GPU in addition to the customized x86 processor too. They talked about ‘Hyperthreading’ on the specs slide, however I figured it was simply mistakenly getting used as a catch-all time period for simultaneous multithreading. After all, if Intel was manufacturing the customized 2.7GHz x86 CPU for Stadia certainly it could get a point out too, proper?
Just a bit ‘Stand up, Bob, thanks for the processor!’ or one thing.
And with AMD’s latest rise within the datacentre, and with the potential energy of the upcoming Zen 2-based Rome processors on the way in which, it appeared like a completely AMD-powered datacentre for Google Stadia made sense. But that’s not the case; AMD contacted me the morning after the occasion to guarantee me that it has nothing to do with the present processing element of the Stadia backend.
“Google announced that the Stadia platform is using custom AMD Radeon datacentre GPUs,” mentioned our pals on the pink workforce, “not AMD CPUs.”
They inspired me to contact the related Stadia folks at Google for data on what CPU was getting used for the game streaming platform, and for every other particulars about it. To which the pleasant, however finally terse response was:
“Nice to connect with you. We won’t be sharing any more info on the architecture at this time.”
Yet it needs to be an Intel chip on the coronary heart of the Google Stadia platform, regardless of the corporate steadfastly refusing to acknowledge who is definitely offering that silicon. The affirmation on-stage that it’s a customized x86 CPU implies that, with AMD discounted from the working, it could solely be Intel or VIA. But VIA is so closely invested in bringing x86 chips to the Chinese market by way of its Zhaoxin offshoot that the present local weather within the US would certainly preclude Google from going that means for its personal Stadia processors.
Read extra: These are the best CPUs in your non-cloud gaming PC
But Intel’s being moderately quiet on the Google entrance too. We’ve reached out to our pals at Intel for a bit mild affirmation and are nonetheless ready to listen to again. The proven fact that it could’t simply instantly flip round and acknowledge its silicon presence in Stadia is unusual, and I believe we are able to depend the whole reticence on anybody’s behalf to brazenly state that Intel is a part of the service’s tech platform as completely weird. Especially in mild of the massive monetary boon it appears to have been for AMD simply to have been spoken about in the identical breath as Google Stadia.
Maybe Intel determined Google’s new game streaming enterprise is doomed
Why wouldn’t Intel have wished the identical kind of worth bump? Hoping for the same 20% share worth improve could be asking a bit a lot, however it could certainly have seen some enchancment. Maybe Google simply doesn’t see the CPU as a very essential a part of the Stadia setup… although if that have been true why particularly point out the customized x86 chip in any respect?
Maybe it’s Intel. Maybe it’s determined that Google’s new game streaming enterprise is doomed to failure and desires no affiliation with it past offering some customized CPU silicon and not using a producer credit score. Hell, there wasn’t even the smallest Intel brand buried inside the record of {hardware} and middleware Google Stadia companions.
Or possibly the present suite of {hardware} getting used because the streaming service’s backend is extra like placeholder tech proper now. The present Intel chips kitting out Google’s Stadia server rooms won’t be those that take care of our streaming future as soon as the platform is correctly launched. It’s attainable these are simply current server chips Google had already purchased and simply filtered into the streaming backend. But then why characterise it as ‘custom?’
A change to AMD’s EPYC processors has been mooted as a possible future step for Stadia, and Google’s Phil Harrison told us himself that “we’re just talking about Gen 1 at the moment, but there will be iterations on that technology over time,” so there may be some potential for a altering of the processor guard both earlier than or after launch.
Whatever the reality of the matter is I nonetheless discover it past unusual that no-one concerned is speaking in regards to the Intel CPUs getting used for Google Stadia, even when they’re not essentially doing something that particular with regards the modern streaming service. Certainly the multi-GPU options on provide with the Radeon graphics playing cards warranted point out, however only a be aware on the specs slide alone might have nonetheless accomplished good issues for Intel.
For no matter purpose Google didn’t need to namecheck the semiconductor big, and as of but Intel seemingly doesn’t need to have its title related to the brand new gaming platform both. And, nosy fecker that I’m, I’d dearly like to know why. Any different ideas?
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