We have been hearing about it for years now, as the revolution in graphic display, in other words Intel Larrabee. The goal is to eliminate discrete GPU and to replace them by numerous x86 cores working in parallel and able to manage 3D rendering while being also perfect hardware tools to GPGPU. If Intel is often talking about Larrabee, so far we did not really witness any hardware demonstration of a future product. It usually comes as rumors than true details. Larrabee would be based on Pentium II cores associated by 8 to 32 units, with a high clock speed thanks to 32 or 45 nm engraving. If recycling old technology to make it new, it does not imply it will be easy as Intel postponed Larrabee till mid-2010 while it was supposed to be released at the end of the current year.
the reason might be linked to the complexity of the system .Indeed, Intel does not only need to develop the hardware, but alos hte software part able to benefit from such dedicated multi core units. It includes API, codes frameworks to give Os as well as applciations the mean to use such hardware resource. Last but not least, it will also need to get dedicated drivers. It is obvious that on this market, ATI/AMd and NVidia have years of experience that Intel does not.
The future might be getting darker for Larrabee, as the longer Intel will wait to develop/release it, the harder it will be to compete with solutions released by ATI/AMD and NVidia, the latest having massively shifted to GPGPU about one year ago.
