Talk:Larrabee (GPU)

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[edit] Criticism

Do these two sentences really warrant an entire section? Of course the criticism is valid, but it looks like somebody rushed to "hate". It makes the rest of the article feel unfinished and hasty, when actually the article is rather complete and of good quality. Perhaps it should be moved to another section? 84.9.165.14 (talk) 21:38, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

No objection? Moved. 84.9.165.14 (talk) 13:16, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

[edit] 10 August edits

Ramu50, your concern about marketing speak in calling x86 "popular" is valid; I've changed it to say "common" instead. I have also reintroduced the information about the Pentagon's involvement in Larrabee's design.

The SIGGRAPH paper clearly states that Larrabee has a coherent cache across all cores: (Italics added for emphasis) Page 1: "The cores each access their own subset of a coherent L2 cache". Page 3: "These cache control instructions also allow the L2 cache to be used similarly to a scratchpad memory, while remaining fully coherent." Page 11: "In contrast, all memory on Larrabee is shared by all processor cores. For Larrabee programmers, local data structure sharing is transparently supported by the coherent cached memory hierarchy regardless of the thread’s processor."

The text claiming that Larrabee has a crossbar architecture is not supported by sources. Larrabee uses a ring bus, as described in the SIGGRAPH paper.

Modeless (talk) 23:22, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Title

Does anyone else have an issue with the title of this page, "Larrabee (GPU)"? I don't know if it is known for certain if Larrabee is meant to stand alone as the only processor in a PC, like what everyone had before 1997, or function like a modern video card with a dedicated CPU. But either way I think calling this a GPU is a stretch. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.219.122.138 (talk) 13:30, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Intel has announced that Larrabee will definitely be sold as a video card. It will be a PCI Express 2.0 card with its own RAM, marketed and sold for the express purpose of accelerating DirectX/OpenGL inside a PC with a separate CPU, just like other GPUs. Not to mention that Larrabee does include some fixed-function GPU hardware (the texture sampling units). Eventually if Intel announces other Larrabee-based products, like a standalone chip that slots into Intel motherboards with QuickPath, we might want to revisit the title of this article. But right now there is no indication that Intel is going to sell Larrabee as anything but a GPU. Modeless (talk) 18:35, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Speculation

[edit] Release date

Any speculation about the estimated release date ? --Xav

Added. Modeless 20:59, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Open drivers

Likewise, any references to open source drivers? --Daniel11 06:43, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Nope, not that I know of, but it makes sense. Intel has in the past been friendly to open-source driver efforts for their hardware, and the trend nowadays is to be more open to support GPGPU (as seen by NVIDIA's CUDA, ATI's CTM and more recently their release of complete documentation without NDAs), and since Intel would like Larrabee to dominate this market they will have to be open. I would be surprised if Intel didn't encourage open-source drivers for Larrabee, at least for the GPGPU side of things. Modeless 20:59, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Unfortunate code name

Larrabee was the name of the slow-witted assistant to the Chief of CONTROL on the TV series Get Smart. ;) He's the guy who when told to take away a bugged aerosol can "and step on it" (meaning do it quickly), took the order literally. After an offscreen explosion, Larrabee came back in with his clothes shredded and said "Chief, I don't think you're supposed to step on those.". —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bizzybody (talk • contribs) 10:35, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] URL for the paper

http://softwarecommunity.intel.com/UserFiles/en-us/File/larrabee_manycore.pdf

I'll leave it to someone else with more time on their hands and better understanding of Wikipedia rules and regulations to beautify this article. --Tatejl (talk) 21:06, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

[edit] August Changes

Requested permission from authors for image use. dila (talk) 20:37, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Permission granted for the use of several ([1], [2], [3], [4]) images from the recent SIGGRAPH conference. dila (talk) 21:39, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Provide the permission text to WP:OTRS please. --soum ^talk 03:59, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

I have sent the permission via email to [permissions-en@wikimedia.org]. dila (talk) 13:06, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Removed entire opening paragraph and replaced with a minimal buzzword description of Larrabee. dila (talk) 01:40, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Jeez Dila, you basically ruined the entire article. Did you even read, let alone understand, anything that you inserted? 99.236.145.40 (talk) 04:15, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Huh? You mean those images that I took time to obtain ruin the article? And my opening description that remains after 27 edits? What exactly are you referring to? Wait, don't bother. dila (talk) 13:00, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Comparison to Cell?

Since the article compares the chip to GPUs from Nvidia, but is more of a multicore, high performance general purpose computer with a ring based connectivity, whouldn't at least a reference to the Cell (Cell Broadband Engine) be suitable? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.209.166.130 (talk) 11:16, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

There was one - see here[5]. It was probably removed by 99.236.145.40, the fool above. dila (talk) 14:23, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Please be respectful of other editors. Comment as much as you want on their edits, but don't make it personal. --soum ^talk 09:29, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

I've started a comparison in the comparison section. Modeless (talk) 08:05, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Read on only if you want the unsolicited advice from an experienced editor :). Wikipedia articles are to describe about the subject of the article, not about its competitors. So its better not to delve deep into the competition. Mention it in a one liner like "competes with GPUs like X, Y as well as with high performance architectures like Z". Use proper categories and navboxes to enable easy navigation between articles about competing products. Try to avoid comparison as much as possible, that becomes extremely unwieildly in the long run. Only include as much comparatory info as is necessary to understand the concepts. Like fully programmable pipeline in Larrabbee vs partial ones in regular GPUs or crossbar vs ring bus architecture. Do not put comparison about performance or other stuff in this article. Rather, if that information needs to be provided, create a separate "Comparison of Larrabee and..." articles (if necessary, a series of articles, even). A proper structure is the first thing in maintainability of articles. --soum ^talk 09:26, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Advert

This article looks like an advertisment to me. Especially with the inclusion of that programmability graph with all arrows pointing towards it. Also there is no mention of any competing products. NPOV anyone? --DustWolf (talk) 00:56, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

The competing products are mentioned in the first line. Would you like to see expansion of that? E_dog95 ^Hi 01:08, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Almost the whole article is a comparison of Larrabee to current products. I would love nothing more than to compare Larrabee with the future products it will be competing with in late 2009. However, basically nothing is known about the next GPUs from NVIDIA and ATI. They keep all information about future products as secret as possible until right before release (days usually). Intel is being remarkably open for the GPU market. So there really isn't much to compare Larrabee to right now. I could add some speculation but I suppose that doesn't belong in a Wikipedia article (the Beyond3D forum is probably the best place). As for the PowerPoint slide, well, it is from an Intel marketing presentation, so I suppose it should look like an advertisement. Feel free to replace it. Modeless (talk) 08:21, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

I think the first chip image is good, but I guess the others are a bit "Pro-Intel". Also they are "public domain" which makes them really hassle free. dila (talk) 21:06, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

I would like to propose that the article is extended with an "architecture" section where the known architectual features are described. It will then be natural to go into the comparisons with GPUs from Nvidia, AMD/ATI as well as Cell/CBE chips from TSI. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.209.166.130 (talk) 07:44, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

[edit] GPGPU?

Here's another interesting question: How can a chip that is not technically a GPU according to it's maker, compete in the GPGPU market? --DustWolf (talk) 13:47, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Because it can be programmed to do the same job. 84.9.165.10 (talk) 19:01, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

As can practically any other piece of computer hardware, especially all the CPUs. That doesn't mean they are all in the GPGPU market.--DustWolf (talk) 23:40, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Larrabee will have some hardware support for GPU operations (like texture filtering), while CPU's do not. 84.9.164.204 (talk) 20:54, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Not exactly true, a CPU can emulate any function of a GPU (including texture filtering), making this more an issue of semantics than of hardware architecture. My vote is that this chip is more a CPU than a GPU, due to it's x86 instruction set. I'm not saying this doesn't make it part of the GPGPU market because I say so, but you can't just arbitrarily decide that depending on what the marketing department says. Use some official definition instead.--DustWolf (talk) 03:23, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Also the reference source provided (2) has a link to a bogus article that has no mention of GPGPU, stram processing or Larrabee.--DustWolf (talk) 23:53, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

That was a rather bogus reference; I suspect it was an accidental copy/paste of the wrong press release link. I've updated it. The improved reference says things like "The Larrabee native programming model supports a variety of highly parallel applications [...] This enables [...] true general purpose computation on the graphics processor". And: "Initial product implementations of the Larrabee architecture will target discrete graphics applications, support DirectX and OpenGL, and run existing games and programs." Intel doesn't use the acronyms GPU or GPGPU; their preferred marketing-speak is "Architecture for Visual Computing". But it's obvious that what they are describing is intended to compete with GPUs in both graphics and GPGPU applications. In addition, the SIGGRAPH paper is a little less marketing-driven, and uses the acronyms "GPU" and "GPGPU" more times than I care to count right now (not to directly describe Larrabee, but to compare it to its competition). Modeless (talk) 06:45, 2 September 2008 (UTC)