Nvidia CEO talks down CPU-GPU hybrids, Larrabee

jmke · 12th April 2008, 11:55

Yesterday at its Financial Analyst Day conference, officials from Nvidia talked for quite a while (about six hours) about the firm's position in the market. They addressed, at some length, how Nvidia plans to counter the AMD and Intel CPU-GPU hybrids and Intel's upcoming Larrabee graphics processor. Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang was quite vocal on those fronts, arguing hybrid chips that mix microprocessor and graphics processor cores will be no different from systems that include Intel or AMD integrated graphics today. He also had some choice words about Larrabee...

http://techreport.com/discussions.x/14538

12th April 2008, 12:02

Isn't the mixed chip mainly something to make integrated graphics PCs cheaper?

13th April 2008, 00:13

Integrated chips were supposed to be cheaper, involve less motherboard complexity, slightly better performance, but most importantly better power efficiency. Biggest reason, better power efficiency. Is why NVIDIA created the APX 2500.

Will be interesting... right now I wonder more if NVIDIA is ignoring reality. Same repeated mistakes with their chipsets they have not fixed, 2 year delay in launching a "new" GPU, horrible track record with Vista drivers... makes me wonder.

NVIDIA can talk up CUDA all they wish, but currently it is hamstrung by coding issues. Was one reason Stanford is not writing NVIDIA F@H clients in CUDA, but rather DirectX. I suspect there will be a F@H client for Larabee much much sooner than for a NVIDIA GPU. NVIDIA can't be bothered to support Stanford's efforts, so not much of a high horse for Jen-Hsun Huang to ride on.

geoffrey · 13th April 2008, 13:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kougar

Integrated chips were supposed to be cheaper, involve less motherboard complexity, slightly better performance, but most importantly better power efficiency. Biggest reason, better power efficiency. Is why NVIDIA created the APX 2500.

Will be interesting... right now I wonder more if NVIDIA is ignoring reality. Same repeated mistakes with their chipsets they have not fixed, 2 year delay in launching a "new" GPU, horrible track record with Vista drivers... makes me wonder.

NVIDIA can talk up CUDA all they wish, but currently it is hamstrung by coding issues. Was one reason Stanford is not writing NVIDIA F@H clients in CUDA, but rather DirectX. I suspect there will be a F@H client for Larabee much much sooner than for a NVIDIA GPU. NVIDIA can't be bothered to support Stanford's efforts, so not much of a high horse for Jen-Hsun Huang to ride on.

There are making money; what do you want, that they threat you well?

Intel is trying to get this thing of the ground, but with rasterization being used this long it's like INTEL <-> Gaming market. If they can't convince the programmers, Larrabee will not be a success. From a programmers point of view, they have been doing DX all those years, now suddenly they have to make the switch. This will cost time and money, I'm not sure if that is what they really want, profits in the pc game industry are rather small. Today, programmers are still focusing on DX9/10, new generation games which support raytracing will probable not hit the streets in the following years. I don't think Larrabee can compete with videocards which have been specially designed for rasterization work, when used in DX9/10 applications.

If Intel wants to be really successful, they need to get a food in the console industry. When are next-gen consoles being launched?

I have more faith in NVIDIA then in Intel when talking about the future of 3D graphics.

jmke · 13th April 2008, 18:36

next consoles... no facts yet

13th April 2008, 23:48

ATI isn't doing so hot, but they've been working very closely with Stanford and some other general computing initiatives for the past couple years. Goodwill still counts for something in my book, and NVIDIA doesn't have much of it.

I would agree, Larrabee isn't going to win any hardware rasterization benchmarks, but it doesn't have to. Larrabee is not primarily a GPU, it is a add-in "many-CPU" card Intel is targeting to the server and HPC markets. GPU's are just a side-market for Larrabee, a potential icing on the cake so to speak.

12th April 2008, 11:55	#1
jmke Madshrimp Join Date: May 2002 Location: 7090/Belgium Posts: 79,021	Nvidia CEO talks down CPU-GPU hybrids, Larrabee Yesterday at its Financial Analyst Day conference, officials from Nvidia talked for quite a while (about six hours) about the firm's position in the market. They addressed, at some length, how Nvidia plans to counter the AMD and Intel CPU-GPU hybrids and Intel's upcoming Larrabee graphics processor. Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang was quite vocal on those fronts, arguing hybrid chips that mix microprocessor and graphics processor cores will be no different from systems that include Intel or AMD integrated graphics today. He also had some choice words about Larrabee... http://techreport.com/discussions.x/14538 __________________

13th April 2008, 18:36	#5
jmke Madshrimp Join Date: May 2002 Location: 7090/Belgium Posts: 79,021	next consoles... no facts yet __________________

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12th April 2008, 12:02	#2
Rutar Posts: n/a	Isn't the mixed chip mainly something to make integrated graphics PCs cheaper?

13th April 2008, 00:13	#3
Kougar Posts: n/a	Integrated chips were supposed to be cheaper, involve less motherboard complexity, slightly better performance, but most importantly better power efficiency. Biggest reason, better power efficiency. Is why NVIDIA created the APX 2500. Will be interesting... right now I wonder more if NVIDIA is ignoring reality. Same repeated mistakes with their chipsets they have not fixed, 2 year delay in launching a "new" GPU, horrible track record with Vista drivers... makes me wonder. NVIDIA can talk up CUDA all they wish, but currently it is hamstrung by coding issues. Was one reason Stanford is not writing NVIDIA F@H clients in CUDA, but rather DirectX. I suspect there will be a F@H client for Larabee much much sooner than for a NVIDIA GPU. NVIDIA can't be bothered to support Stanford's efforts, so not much of a high horse for Jen-Hsun Huang to ride on.

13th April 2008, 23:48	#6
Kougar Posts: n/a	ATI isn't doing so hot, but they've been working very closely with Stanford and some other general computing initiatives for the past couple years. Goodwill still counts for something in my book, and NVIDIA doesn't have much of it. I would agree, Larrabee isn't going to win any hardware rasterization benchmarks, but it doesn't have to. Larrabee is not primarily a GPU, it is a add-in "many-CPU" card Intel is targeting to the server and HPC markets. GPU's are just a side-market for Larrabee, a potential icing on the cake so to speak.