Intel Reaffirms Death of the Larrabee Discrete GPU

In late 2009, after years of research and development efforts, Intel saw itself with little choice besides announcing that the Larrabee graphics project was never going to be completed. Hope was slightly rekindled a few months later, when a TechEye report said there was still a roadmap in place that included plans for a Larrabee discrete GPU. Now, Intel has finally taken the final step and crushed all hopes and dreams of x86-based graphics.

In a recent blog post, the Santa Clara, California-based CPU maker bluntly stated that there were no plans for a discrete graphics solution, at least for the short term. In fact, the only planned video-related products are next-generation circuits for CPUs with on-die graphics. Instead, the focus will be shifted towards many-core high-performance computing (HPC). This means that optimizing the Xeon series of CPUs, as well as popularizing the 48-core x86 microprocessor, will be the main concern of the company for the time being. This announcement comes just about a week after IBM showed off a server running NVIDIA Tesla GPU computing modules.

“We are focused on processor graphics, and we believe media/HD video and mobile computing are the most important areas to focus on moving forward. Intel’s processor graphics will continue to be enhanced - with more surprises - in our 2011 Intel Core processor family, code-named Sandy Bridge,” said Bill Kircos, director of product and technology media relations at Intel.

“We will not bring a discrete graphics product to market, at least in the short-term. […] We are also executing on a business opportunity derived from the Larrabee program and Intel research in many-core chips, “ he added. “This server product line expansion is optimized for a broader range of highly parallel workloads in segments such as high performance computing. We will also continue with ongoing Intel architecture-based graphics and HPC-related R&D and proof of concepts.”