Intel unwraps Larrabee

what the hell are you smokin edwin92? I have had my same 8800gts-640mb in my pc with core2duo since 2006 and there still is nothing on the market that i can't run at high settings at 1920x1200. Hell 95% of all games on my pc i can max out! Thats 2 years of not upgrading. Its because of people like you who are too impatient and don't like tweakin their pc's that people move to consoles, or the people who buy dells with intel integrated graphics and get mad they can't play pc games, but then moan that it costs $2000 for a good pc(but it doesn't its about $600) You are right on one point, I have had to become more of a console gamer lately. Why because of people like you leaving pc gaming behind, and the pirates companies aren't making as many pc games, so I had to shell out for a ps3 just to play all those great sony games that don't come to pc..best of 360 goes to pc, and I don't buy rrod hardware! As far as this intel gpu goes, I don't see it doing much, if all they are doing is throwing multi-core cpu's with software rendering and calling it a gpu then that won't do anything really. It would take 100's of core2duos' to equal the performance of a dedicated graphics card..Then again maybe I am reading this wrong and they are making a dedicated hardware gpu..but with intel.. i don't see it!

All I can say is....I don't care! When I get my degree in Games Development then I'll care. Until then, I don't want to put too much brainpower into it!

See this is the crap why pc gamers become none pc gamers because stoopid a$$ computer manufacters keep make these new computers with underpowered GPU's.Thats how i became from a hardcore pc gamer to a hardcore console gamer,because i'm just sick and tired of upgradeing.Plus those pc game developers keep exceeding the power of the GPU's already on the market thats the reason why you have to keep on upgradeing and wasteing money.Also if you are a ATi or NVIDIA person don't switch to Intel like a dumb a$$.I'm a ATi person myself.

lol, and im getting a Q6600 in September.

ill check it out it 2009 or 2010, if it's just as good as the stand alone gpu pcie cards that will be out by then ill look into upgrading then seeing as how i have a phenom 9850 n a radeon 4870 in my rig right now it seems its at the time i would be looking to upgrade anyway

Does look alot like the Cell processor config, I hope the means more ports to the PS3. PC to PS3, sounds like a good deal for PS3 owners!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

brain hurts, it hurts, really bad....

Looks promising, but time will tell. :P

Sounds like the endgame with what Sony was trying to accomplish with the Cell processor. Could work if it finds the right ammount of support, and could certainly push ATI and NVIDIA above and beyond their current offerings.

U know what, i dont really know what to think of this. I mean it could rock, but on the other hand the biggest problem is not the piece of hardware itself but A) support and B) drivers .... Nvid and ATI have enough trouble getting drivers to work on their own given they are a purely GPU based company ... how much manpower Intel will devote to it will be iffy...

It's about time Intel considered merging a CPU with GPU! This breakthrough is going to make everything so much simpler and efficient. For consumers that is.

Hmmm. This will prolly be a new socket too. That means a mobo upgrade in the future.

could be intel actually has something good to offer or...yeah what mcname just said ... only time will tell...

I smell another "Physics Accelerator" flunk. Anyone? Or "lol moar liek ageia larrabee m i rite?"

Intel held a press conference this past Friday to give journalists the first look at its upcoming Larrabee architecture ahead of the technology's official "coming out" in a technical discussion at next week's Siggraph 2008 conference.

Intel's Larry Seiler, senior principal engineer in the visual computing group, led the presentation. Seiler shared Larrabee's basic architectural details, but stopped short of divulging any specific product information such as processor counts or clock speeds.

Seiler calls Larrabee a "many-core x86 architecture" that combines the programmability of the CPU with the parallelism of the GPU. The GPU manufacturers have made huge advances in making several of the fixed-function steps in the graphics pipeline programmable, but many parts of the pipeline are still fixed.

Larrabee can rid the pipeline of the fixed function logic because it uses an array of x86 processing cores that can be controlled with a software renderer. Current GPUs have to let some hardware sit idle if the graphics workload composition doesn't match up with the chip's capabilities. Switching to fully functional processors and moving control to software will make more efficient use of the GPU because the system can allocate resources to better match up with the graphics workload.

Intel is targeting the consumer graphics market for its initial Larrabee rollout. Larrabee will be fully compatible with OpenGL and DirectX games, as the chip can mimic the traditional graphics pipeline with programmable software.

Larrabee will also have a tile-based renderer that can take advantage of the chip's L2 cache to reduce bandwidth requirements.

Developers will also have the option to write code specifically for Larrabee if they want to implement additional application features or graphics that might not run as efficiently in the standard graphics pipeline.

Because it's an array of processors, Larrabee will also be well-suited for all of the highly parallel processing applications that Nvidia and AMD are currently targeting with their respective CUDA and GPGPU initiatives.

Expect to see the first Larrabee-based graphics products in 2009 or 2010.It's too early to predict how well Larrabee graphics processors will perform against Nvidia and AMD GPUs at launch, but several Intel engineers told GameSpot that they're well aware that performance will have to be competitive in order for them to build up the large installation base they'll need to justify the project.