Intel officially launches 8th Gen Intel Core with Radeon RX Vega M Graphics, the first Intel chips with AMD's Radeon Graphics
It's here - one of the most unlikely partnerships in the semiconductor industry. Long-time rivals Intel and AMD, battling out of x86 dominance for over 35 years, are now co-conspirators.
Context & Ripple Effects
This launch closes out a fast-moving arc: Intel and AMD announced the co-designed processor just two months ago in their surprise partnership, and the specs leaked days ago when the Core i7-8809G surfaced on Intel's Indian site at a 100W target TDP. Sandwiched between them was Intel's hire of AMD's Raja Koduri as chief GPU architect, a signal that Intel wants its own high-end graphics capability, not just a rented one.
The significance is competitive positioning rather than volume: after 35 years of x86 rivalry, Intel is licensing the very Radeon graphics it once competed against, aiming it squarely at thin-and-light notebooks where a discrete GPU has historically been too hot and thick to fit.
First-order effects
- Notebook makers gain a single-package option that puts top-tier gaming into thin-and-light designs without a separate discrete GPU slot, changing what their premium ultraportable lineups can offer.
- AMD gets a new revenue channel from its oldest rival — selling Radeon silicon into Intel's own processors — while NVIDIA loses the default position for mid-range discrete graphics in exactly these compact gaming designs.
Second-order effects
- NVIDIA faces pressure to defend the thin-gaming notebook segment it currently owns, likely through lower-power or more tightly integrated offerings of its own.
- The deal establishes Radeon IP as valuable enough for a rival to license, strengthening AMD's hand in future silicon partnerships even as its own CPU business battles Intel elsewhere.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, the x86 duopoly shifts from pure head-to-head competition toward selective cooperation on packaging and platforms — rivals buying each other's strengths where integration beats ownership.
- Intel's parallel move hiring Koduri suggests the AMD arrangement may be a bridge product: once Intel fields credible in-house high-end graphics, its dependence on Radeon licensing becomes a negotiating lever rather than a necessity.
The trend: CPU makers are collapsing the boundary between integrated and discrete graphics by fusing third-party and in-house GPU silicon directly onto the processor package, with licensing deals like Intel-AMD setting the template.