Intel was supposed to launch its first discrete graphics card next year, and the Larrabee “GPU” would be something out of the ordinary. The graphics circuit that easily can be confused with a CPU since it is built from many smaller x86 CPU cores. We now have a clear view of the future of Larrabee and retail is not on it. Intel is NOT pulling the plug on the Larrabee project, but is still working on discrete solutions, but won’t be seeing any Larrabee graphics cards anytime soon.
Instead Intel will use its first Larrabee circuit as a platform for software development and research on coming Larrabee products. The reason Larrabee won’t be making a retail appearance is said to be a mix of hardware and software, where both have been slipping.
The exact details behind the decision are foggy, but we can be certain that they were not just any little speed bump. Intel wasn’t confident enough to launch Larrabee right now and this is of course a letdown for us consumers, but good news for AMD and NVIDIA, which can now relax a bit.
Especially NVIDIA should be pleased since its Fermi architecture is still not available and it will target the GPGPU industry just as Intel was thinking of doing.
Intel will continue developing Larrabee and sooner or later we will see the result with new graphics cards. The base architecture isn’t the problem, it just about achieving more efficient manufacturing processes and improve the final product, and if nothing truly bad happens we should expect Larrabee suited up by 2011/2012.
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