Intel has decided to kill its Kaby Lake G series of processors, putting an end to its once-ambitious team up with chief rival AMD.
The chipmaker recently issued a Product Change Notification outlining how it plans to end the Kaby Lake G CPUs by next year. The company said it will continue to take orders until Jan. 31, 2020, but it will ship its final orders by July 31, 2020.
End Of Life For Intel Kaby Lake-G CPUs
The following are the specific processors set to reach their end-of-life by 2020, according to the Intel PCN:
- Intel Core i7-8706G Processor - FH8067703417418
- Intel Core i7-8705G Processor - FH8067703417515
- Intel Core i7-8809G Processor - FH8067703417615
- Intel Core i5-8305G Processor - FH8067703417714
- Intel Core i7-8709G Processor - FH8067703419113
- Intel Core i7-8706G Processor - FH8067703417418
- Intel Core i5-8305G Processor - FH8067703417715
Speaking to Tom's Hardware, Intel explained why it has decided to end its Kaby Lake G CPUs.
"Intel is refocusing its product portfolio, the chipmaker said.
"Our 10th Gen Intel Core processors with Iris Plus graphics are built on the new Gen11 graphics architecture that nearly doubled graphics performance. We have more in store from our graphics engine that will bring further enhancements to PCs in the future."
Impact On Kaby Lake G Users
Tech experts don't expect the end of the Kaby Lake G series to have any significant impact on consumers. However, their discontinuance speaks volumes about the challenges of using the chips, more specifically when it comes to driver support.
Normally, discrete GPU users can simply download their chip drivers from the original manufacturers, such as AMD or NVIDIA. By comparison, Kaby Lake G CPU owners could only to get drivers for the chip's AMD Radeon RX Vega M graphics only from Intel.
With the impending doom of the Intel CPU series, observers wondered where the chipmaker expects Kaby Lake G users to download their drivers from moving forward.
When the processors were introduced back in 2017, Intel promised users that it will provide driver support for the CPUs for five years from the date it was launched as per its standard policy. This means that Kaby Lake G owners would still be able to get driver updates for at least the next three and a half years.
The Intel - AMD Partnership
The launch of the Kaby Lake G series was supposed to be a milestone event for the tech industry. It marked one of the few times that two of the biggest rivals in the business worked together to produce a top-of-the-line product. Intel and AMD's partnership was meant to challenge NVIDIA's dominance in the laptop graphics department.
In its review of the Intel CPUs at the time, PC World noted how the then-new processors could give competitors a run for their money.
"As good as it is, Kaby Lake G isn't going to shake up the CPU+GeForce scene today," the tech website wrote.
"But tomorrow, if there's a Cannon Lake G or a Whiskey Lake G with more cores and better graphics, AMD and Nvidia should be worried."
The article went on to claim that Intel's integration of the CPU and GPU chips in one setup allowed the Kaby Lake G to bypass NVIDIA's offerings. If Intel were to purchase the graphics chip and add it to its laptops, then it would be able to eliminate its dependence on the GPU maker.
With Intel ultimately conceding its foray into CPU/GPUs, it seems NVIDIA's would remain top dog in graphics chip manufacturing for the time being.
