Intel Confirms 'Larrabee' First Half 2010; No Delay

While many of us are running either an ATI or Nvidia GPU in our systems, the world’s largest maker of graphics chips is Intel.

Thanks to its integrated graphics, Intel’s GPUs are the most common ones on the market. They are, however, chosen for their cost and integration rather than performance. Intel is looking to change that with Larrabee, which will also be a GPGPU.

Intel spoke at the at the opening of Saarland University's Visual Computing Institute and revealed that Larrabee uses 32 processor cores and mates each of these with its own vector math unit, according to Guru3D.

German site PCGamesHardware also has a blurry picture of the Larrabee die, which shows each of the processor cores along with cache memory and a memory interface.

Guru3D noted in its story that Intel's Joseph Schultz said Larrabee was pushed back from its original target, but we spoke to Intel to get the full story.

“There is no delay. We always said it would launch in the 2009/2010 timeframe,” an Intel representative told Tom’s Hardware. “We are narrowing that timeframe to the 1st half of 2010.”

Larrabee is healthy and in our labs right now,” added the representative. “There will be multiple versions of Larrabee over time. We are not releasing additional details at this time.”

Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam served as Tom's Hardware News Director during 2008-2014. He entered tech media in the late 90s and fondly remembers the days when an overclocked Celeron 300A and Voodoo2 SLI comprised a gaming rig with the ultimate street cred.
  • megamanx00
    Sure, but can it play Crysis?
    Reply
  • frozenlead
    Awaiting benchmarks.
    Reply
  • starryman
    I just love the full in-depth news coverage here. More like a press release. Snore.
    Reply
  • computabug
    Any have any thoughts (or better yet, facts) about the average price Larrabee's gonna be at in 2011-ish? I mean like, is it high end like Intel SSD's (way over-priced) or will it be around the same price as the GTX/48XX's right now?
    Reply
  • Rancifer7
    Now the real question comes to price. If it will be more expensive and harder to integrate with existing apps, will it catch on with the integrated market. My guess is that for the market Intel is going for, cost effectiveness is key.
    Reply
  • slickuser
    >> harder to integrate with existing apps

    I believe it will support openGL & DirectX. you can search on google for this.
    Reply
  • dman3k
    Evil ranking of organizations and groups in America:

    PURE EVIL = Apple
    PURE EVIL = Scientology
    PURE EVIL = Monsanto
    SIGNIFICANTLY EVIL = Intel
    SIGNIFICANTLY EVIL = GOP
    SIGNIFICANTLY EVIL = Philip Morris
    PATHETIC AND EVIL = Halliburton
    PATHETIC AND EVIL = Fox News
    PATHETIC AND EVIL = Comcast
    EVIL = Microsoft
    EVIL = AT&T
    EVIL = Bank of America
    ALMOST EVIL = Sony
    ALMOST EVIL = NCAA
    ALMOST EVIL = NRA
    Reply
  • cruiseoveride
    slickuser>> harder to integrate with existing appsI believe it will support openGL & DirectX. you can search on google for this.But unlike modern GPUs that have the commands stored on the chip, the lazybee will need a library to translate regular x86 into DirectX/OpenGL commands. Mad overhead if you ask me.
    Reply
  • Shadow703793
    dman3kEvil ranking of organizations and groups in America:PURE EVIL = ApplePURE EVIL = ScientologyPURE EVIL = MonsantoSIGNIFICANTLY EVIL = IntelSIGNIFICANTLY EVIL = GOPSIGNIFICANTLY EVIL = Philip MorrisPATHETIC AND EVIL = HalliburtonPATHETIC AND EVIL = Fox NewsPATHETIC AND EVIL = ComcastEVIL = MicrosoftEVIL = AT&TEVIL = Bank of AmericaALMOST EVIL = SonyALMOST EVIL = NCAA ALMOST EVIL = NRADude! That deserves an award. Brilliant!
    Reply
  • crisisavatar
    I will be building my new system around this timeframe, bad news is that things like this will have me waiting for a couple of more months for better hardware.

    Btw I think that unless Intel lunches this first generation of GPUs at a low price is not going to be accepted too well.
    Reply