Several former AMD employees who were involved with the company's graphics division are now helping Intel launch its first discrete GPU, currently scheduled for 2020. Among them are Raja Koduri, Jim Keller, Chris Hook, and now Darren McPhee.
McPhee is the latest hire to Intel's graphics team. According to a recent Twitter update, which was first spotted by OC3D, McPhee accepted a role at Intel as its director of product marketing for discrete graphics.
After a few years away from the graphics industry, happy to be back and part of the @intel team!October 29, 2018
It's not unusual for high level talent to bounce from one major firm to another—it happens all the time in the tech industry. However, it's interesting that Intel's efforts to compete in the discrete GPU space are being spearheaded by so many different former AMD players, including Raja Koduri, who lead AMD's Radeon Technologies Group and oversaw the development of Vega.
That said, it's been a few years since McPhee worked at AMD. According to his LinkdedIn profile, he served various marketing roles at AMD spanning almost a decade, all of which related to gaming and graphics. He transitioned to AMD when the company acquired ATI Technologies—at the time, McPhee was ATI's senior product manager.
McPhee lists a marketing video called "The Fixer" under his belt during his time at AMD. If you've been building PCs for a bit, you might remember the video, which came out in 2013 to promote AMD's graphics cards like the Radeon HD 7970, its first GCN card, and Never Settle bundles.
Beyond the hires, we don't know a whole lot about Intel's discrete graphics play—it isn't talking specifics about the hardware or architecture yet. However, Intel did previously say it will target "a broad range of computing segments," which presumably includes gaming.
