Larrabee (microarchitecture)
Larrabee is the codename for a graphics card generation of Intel. The co-processor based on it appeared in 2012 under the name Intel Xeon Phi.
In contrast to hitherto usual graphics processors ( GPUs) Intel uses a cluster of several based on Pentium processors CPUs.
Larrabee was supposed to come in late 2009 or early 2010 on the market. In December 2009, Intel confirmed that no products will be based on the first generation of Larrabee to market. In summer 2012, Intel introduced based on the Larrabee architecture further developed the MIC card (Many Integrated Core) before as a coprocessor under the name "Intel Xeon Phi ".
The first processors appear in the form of two cards with the name " Xeon Phi 5110P " and the more fuel-efficient and cheaper option " Xeon Phi 3100". The Xeon Phi 5110P is already being delivered to OEM partners and is intended for 2649 dollars come on the market from 28 January 2013. The Xeon 3100 Phi is then in the first half of 2013 will be available at a price of under $ 2000 later.
Description
In January 2007, Intel confirmed officially for the first time the existence of the Larrabee project. However, it has not been announced at this time, what it is doing. Only at the Intel Developer Forum in April 2007 announced the former senior vice president and general manager of Intel, Patrick Gelsinger, that it is at Larrabee to high-end graphics cards based on " IA " cores. As application area Gelsinger stated scientific computing, visualization and other applications in the area of health and analysis.
Intel Larrabee pursued with the one from the structure of the chip manufactures different approach than is the case with its competitors in the Geforce and Radeon graphics cards series. Instead of just placing a lot, very simple specialized execution units on the chip, Intel strives for it to build in the Larrabee dozens Pentium P54C processors on one piece of silicon. This will then allow for a very flexible programming and can be addressed, among other things about the graphics interface DirectX and OpenGL so. Thus, it is conceivable to use the processors as well to the later normal execution program code. They would, for example integrated in the operating system as additional processors similar to normal multi-core processor systems. This is possible because the Pentium P54C processors are compatible with the latest Intel architecture and no adjustment of the program code would be required ( as is the case with RISC processors, and so does the graphics processors from Nvidia and ATI, compare CUDA ).
In December 2009, Intel announced that initially no Larrabee graphics cards are brought to the consumer market. The reasons Intel stated that Larrabee had expectations software does not meet both in and in the hardware sector. At the same time pointed out to that for competitive Larrabeeprodukte a mature 32- nm manufacturing process was necessary, suggesting that the power consumption have been too high needs and / or the clock rates were too low. In November 2009, Intel introduced on the supercomputing exhibition before an overclocked Larrabee with a capacity of over one Tera - FLOP. However, these performance areas have been reached in the summer of 2008 by the Radeon HD 4870 or GeForce GTX 280. Intel confirmed that Larrabee would continue as a pure research project, in order to support the software development of the " Larrabee 2 ".
To put the performance of the new processor to the test, Intel took over the company offset software and its game " Project Offset ". This game had already been announced by Offset Software in 2005 and caused quite particularly because of its stunning graphics quite a stir. With the end of the Larrabee project to the regret of many fans ended just as the development of the game " Project Offset ".