14 DAY TRIAL // During this year's Intel Developer Forum (IDF 2009) event, in San Francisco, California, the world's leading chip maker had a number of presentations and details on some of its much-anticipated products, some of which are expected to debut in the upcoming future. On of these presentations was about the company's much-anticipated Larrabee project, which is expected to enable Intel to compete with the likes of NVIDIA and AMD in the discrete graphics segment. The chip was demoed at the event, with the company trying to emphasize the benefits of using ray-tracing for boosting the visual quality of the graphics.
Larrabee is one of Intel's most anticipated products, as this is a project from a company that has previously focused on x86 processor platforms for portable and desktop computer systems. However, Intel is currently trying to expand its horizons keeping a close eye on the handheld market, but also on the market for discrete graphics solutions. For a long time now, Larrabee has been said to enable Intel to enter a head-to-head competition with NVIDIA and AMD, which are currently dominating the market for discrete graphics solutions.
During the keynote of Sean Maloney, the VP and general manager of Intel's Architecture Group, the audience was treated with a glimpse of what the upcoming enthusiast GPU code-named Larrabee is capable of. Although the demonstration was based on a pre-production sample of Intel's upcoming graphics chip, reports from the show indicate that the image quality was good. However, the showcased level from Enemy Territory: Quake Wars (which Intel used in the past, with demonstrations on its regular CPUs) was running rather choppy, according to a recent news-article on PC World.
Unfortunately, Intel followed its usual ways by not providing any specific details on the upcoming chip's core count, clock rates or performance stats. However, the chip will apparently be integrated into a future CPU, Maloney reportedly told reporters at the show.
For those who want to take a look at what Intel is planning for the future, there's a short YouTube video at the end of this article, so be sure to check it out.