Intel Larrabee - the CPU-powered GPU
Written by Andreas G 08 August 2008 22:20

Intel Larrabee is at least a year from launch and it will most likely take another couple of months for Intel to tailor the last few threads for the retail market. As you may have heard, over and over again, Larrabee is Intel's way of computing 3D graphics, but calling it a GPU, graphics processing unit, isn't really telling the truth since it's more of a CPU and GPU hybrid than anything else. It goes back to the ancient Pentium architecture and will simply use a different number of cores depending on the performance segment.

Even if we may have to wait until late next year, or even early 2010, before we actually see Larrabee in action, Intel has decided to release some additional information about its grand project which, if it succeeds, may very well change the way we look at computers. Intel claims that Larrabee may become, later on, the only processor a PC needs since it can do both regular CPU and GPU work, all within the same circuit.

A lot is hanging on which manufacturing processor Intel will have ready for the Larrabee launch since this will not only produce higher frequencies but also affect how many of the Pentium-related cores Intel can fit inside the chip.

To make sure that everything works as it should, Intel needs to do some magic with its software, the very foundation of making it work and reaching its full potential. It is a quite enticing thinking of a software-based rendering handled by a CPU/GPU circuit like Larrabee. Just think how you would download a new driver to add support for a new version of DirectX instead of buying new hardware, which ATI and NVIDIA requires you to do today. The only thing stopping you is the performance of the chip, not the technology per se.

"Well, we've known it was coming for quite a while. We knew it would be a many-core CPU architecture well suited to graphics. And with as much information as we were given, when we sat down to look at what we had we felt like we still didn't know anything about Larrabee. Piles of data and information, insight into how a software render would fit on top of the underlying architecture... it has left us with the feeling that all this is a really cool idea with great potential, but we just don't have any idea what or how well it will do when it finally hits." - Anandtech

There are a couple of interesting previews of Larrabee and its design for those of you who want to learn more about Intel's coming "graphics processor";

:: Anandtech :: PC Perspective :: Tech Arp :: Tech Report ::

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