Axed Intel Larrabee GPU Unearthed and Booting Windows

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Over a decade after axing, there is still one Larrabee alive.

Intel
(Image credit: Fuzzy_Initiative5988/Reddit)

It's been over a decade since the project was canned, but noe a working Intel Larrabee graphics card has been found and installed into a modern PC running Windows 10 operating system. Thus far, this appears to be the first time a Larrabee GPU has booted a modern version of Windows successfully, as other attempts have failed. 

got_the_intel_larrabee_working from r/LinusTechTips

A member of the LinusTechTips community over at Reddit managed to obtain a working Larrabee sample from 'a friend who got it from their work.' The board features a BIOS with build number 1.0.0.0102 dated 02/08/2010 (which is after Intel said it would not release Larrabee as a consumer graphics product). What is even more surprising is that the Larrabee graphics card was allegedly 'pulled from an image processing machine that worked in connection to a CAT scan machine,' which essentially meant that it was being used for image processing. 

For obvious reasons, no Windows 10 drivers came with the card, but it could still work as a basic graphics adapter. GPU-Z recognized the graphics adapter as an Intel GPU and read its device ID (8086 2240 - 8086 2240) but could not recognize its model. The owner now plans to decompile the board's BIOS, possibly to get something more out of the board. 

(Image credit: Fuzzy_Initiative5988/Reddit)

Intel's first discrete GPU, codenamed Larrabee, is perhaps the most mysterious piece of consumer PC hardware developed in the last couple of decades. Larrabee used massively parallel programmable Atom-like x86 cores to process graphics and high-performance computing workloads. 

Intel only released cycle-accurate simulations of Larrabee performance once — back in 2008. But Intel never publicly released actual performance numbers for the part or allowed the press to run any benchmarks on the part before axing the GPU and refocusing its efforts to high-performance computing in 2009. Furthermore, it did everything to keep everything associated with Larrabee under wraps. Yet, some Larrabee boards are now leaking into the wild. A working Larrabee graphics card was also sold for $5,000 on eBay earlier this year. 

So far, those with a Larrabee graphics card have not obtained a driver for the device, so they cannot run games or test its performance using synthetic benchmarks. But perhaps, at some point, someone will get lucky, and we will find out how Intel's x86 hybrid CPU-GPU stacked up against graphics cards of the late 2000s. Of course, if you're craving using an Intel-branded GPU, you could always turn to the company's new cards — it just re-entered the GPU market with its Arc graphics cards. 

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Anton Shilov
Anton Shilov
Contributing Writer

Anton Shilov is a contributing writer at Tom’s Hardware. Over the past couple of decades, he has covered everything from CPUs and GPUs to supercomputers and from modern process technologies and latest fab tools to high-tech industry trends.

5 Comments Comment from the forums
  • evdjj3j
    Larrabee was not Intel's first discrete GPU.
    Reply
  • Exploding PSU
    I remember reading about Larrabee on Anandtech and the "air" of optimism of Intel joining the GPU race. That was a lifetime ago.
    Reply
  • -Fran-
    I remember being in University when Larrabee was first announced and demo'ed. Back then, coincidentally enough, I was taking Hardware and actually discussed its design with our teacher and it was quite fun back then. While it flopped before even reaching consumers, I do remember Larrabee fondly because of that.

    That being said, I do remember talking about how Larrabee was never going to be practical to other people and they would rage at me even insinuating Intel would fail x'D

    Suffice to say, those views did not make me popular; not in a good way at least, LOL.

    Regards.
    Reply
  • ex_bubblehead
    evdjj3j said:
    Larrabee was not Intel's first discrete GPU.
    Yup, 1998, the i740. Granted not all that great.

    You do have to understand something though. The writers here are, for the most part, just kids fresh out of school and were never taught how to properly research their stories.
    Reply
  • borandi
    ex_bubblehead said:
    Yup, 1998, the i740. Granted not all that great.

    You do have to understand something though. The writers here are, for the most part, just kids fresh out of school and were never taught how to properly research their stories.

    But Anton has been writing news for over a decade in various places. The publisher demands a high throughput, so there's no incentive for fact checking.
    Reply