Intel trying to get Larrabee GPUs in the next Xbox?

[T Sizzles]

Intel trying to get Larrabee GPUs in the next Xbox?

Is Intel trying to strike a deal with Microsoft to get developer support for "Larrabee" GPUs?

By T Sizzles

There's no solid proof about this, but over at The Inquirer, speculation from industry insiders say that Intel could be trying to wheel and deal with Microsoft to get support for ther next-gen Larrabee GPUs. It's also important to say that the deal might not be all about the cash, but that Intel will need a big deal to get developers that would traditionally develop games for ATI and nVidia GPUs to develop for "Larrabee" too. If the next Xbox were to have one of the 32-core GPUs, it would force not only console developers but PC game developers to support the hardware. The Larrabee GPUs aren't scheduled to be out any earlier than next year, when they'll be 45nm. Considering that Microsoft is pushing to get it's current Xbox 360 hardware down to 45nm, the next Xbox might be out in 2010 when the new Intel GPUs will be 32nm.

http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/09/03/potential-console-deal-intel

[Madman340]

If they can make them so ****ing beast that they could handle any game, it's of course possible.

[JoeMal]

32 cores?


I'm down

[Madman340]

32nm... Atleast we won't have any overheating problems this time around.

[Dot]

Quote: Originally Posted by JoeMal

32 cores?


I'm down

What are cores?

[Madman340]

An example would be their Core 2 Duo series, they have 'dual' (2) cores, and their Q6600 has 'quad' cores, so 4 cores.

Supposedly this is going to be a very nice thing, although idk.

[Anonymous Joey]

I have no clue what cores are but it sounds nice

[Haxalot88]

it seems like microsoft is trying their hands at a cell processor (remember that the term 'cell processor' is any processor that supports the cell architecture). They could build a 32-core processor if they really wanted to =/

[PIEzoo]

so it sounds great and all but what does it do ? ex Makes it faster, or not as hot

[waffle11]

Both probably considering more processing cores will make something run faster, but only if the application is built to utilize that many processing cores and a smaller die will lower heat output. Unfortunately the more cores it needs to use the harder it is to optimize is my understanding, I could be way off though.

[KranK]

Too good to be true?

[Madman340]

Quote: Originally Posted by KranK

Too good to be true?

No... Just nothing has really been told about Larrabee (as far as I know) much.

It's like a hit in the dark right now... Idk how we should take this news.

[Dot]

Quote: Originally Posted by Madman340

An example would be their Core 2 Duo series, they have 'dual' (2) cores, and their Q6600 has 'quad' cores, so 4 cores.

Supposedly this is going to be a very nice thing, although idk.

Thank you for explaining.
Sounds pretty amazing, is there anything like that around these days?

[Madman340]

Well... No... It would be the first Intel GPU, unless I'm missing some other one.

[JoeMal]

Quote: Originally Posted by waffle11

Both probably considering more processing cores will make something run faster, but only if the application is built to utilize that many processing cores and a smaller die will lower heat output. Unfortunately the more cores it needs to use the harder it is to optimize is my understanding, I could be way off though.

Yes you're absolutely right...people are experiencing issues with this very thing right now with the quad core PCs. Some applications aren't made to run on 4 cores, so it has to 'dumb down' to only use 2 of the cores.

So making a console with 32 cores is step 1, then they need to make games and media that can pair with that technology to actually use all 32 cores...