3 ms·

To be clear, I think that they should have kept iterating on Larrabee (though I would have liked to see it with an open software architecture). With respect to

To be clear, I think that they should have kept iterating on Larrabee (though I would have liked to see it with an open software architecture). With respect to Larrabee, my shock was that Gelsinger had such confidence that iterating on Larrabee would have resulted in an NVIDIA of one-quarter its current size (or one-quarter the size when he recorded the interview in 2019). That's the bit that's bonkers to me: yes, they should have kept iterating (though some acknowledgement from Gelsinger that the first iteration was plagued with problems, not all of them technical[0]) -- but success was emphatically not assured just because it was Intel. [0] https://brightsideofnews.com/blog/an-inconvenient-truth-intel-larrabee-story-revealed/ https://brightsideofnews.com/blog/an-inconvenient-truth-inte...

MBCook 2y ago
If they had kept going, and really got it working, their fab advantage might have let them really go after Nvidia. In an absolute best case scenario, he may be right. But that seems incredibly unlikely. Still, they should’ve had a much MUCH better GPU story than they did.
- nemothekid 2y ago
  >their fab advantage might have let them really go after Nvidia. I think Cantrill spelled it out in the article, and I think people are overlooking (and for some reason really continue to overlook, or just have no idea) that nvidia's advantage is Software. I remember Larabee as a teenager - I just graduated high school, the forums were talking about it, and I had finally saved enough money to buy an 8800GTX. The 8800GTX was also coincidentally, the first consumer GPU to support CUDA. Almost 2 decades later and it feels like nvidia has an insurmountable moat in AI due to CUDA. This wasn't an accident, nvidia spent a ton of time, with developers, getting it right. FTA: >that NVIDIA had an indisputable lead, even in 2009; that for Intel to dominate NVIDIA it would have required conjuring software expertise and focus with which Intel has famously struggled Ignoring this piece is huge in claming that nvidia would be a quarter of the size. Can you even imagine Intel investing in a non-x86 developer platform for 15 years while they were in the lead?
  - MBCook 2y ago
    Not the Intel we have. But if the graphics card stuff had really started to show promise, maybe they would have become an Intel that would. You’re dead right that Nvidia is where they are because of their software story and all the work they put into it. I don’t know if Intel could have learned that lesson.
    - baq 2y ago
      > I don’t know if Intel could have learned that lesson. Intel invented this model with x86.
      - therealcamino 2y ago
        Really? It doesn't seem to me like much Intel-written software has been key to x86's success. The things I can remember from Intel are compilers, performance analysis tools, and threading and math libraries. But none of them were must-haves, or differentiated x86 chips from competing CPU architectures. Most of the software that made x86 successful came from third parties. And more recently, the reviews I read of the Archmage graphics drivers didn't make it sound like Intel had understood the importance of the software that was essential to a pretty big hardware release.
        baq 2y ago
        Your examples are simply too recent. They've been doing it since the 70s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_system_development_kit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_system_development_kit - that they forgot what made them the success they are is unfortunate, but also wholly self-inflicted.
        therealcamino 2y ago
        Those are dev boards -- hardware, not software.
  - markhahn 2y ago

MBCook 2y ago

If they had kept going, and really got it working, their fab advantage might have let them really go after Nvidia. In an absolute best case scenario, he may be right. But that seems incredibly unlikely. Still, they should’ve had a much MUCH better GPU story than they did.

nemothekid 2y ago
>their fab advantage might have let them really go after Nvidia. I think Cantrill spelled it out in the article, and I think people are overlooking (and for some reason really continue to overlook, or just have no idea) that nvidia's advantage is Software. I remember Larabee as a teenager - I just graduated high school, the forums were talking about it, and I had finally saved enough money to buy an 8800GTX. The 8800GTX was also coincidentally, the first consumer GPU to support CUDA. Almost 2 decades later and it feels like nvidia has an insurmountable moat in AI due to CUDA. This wasn't an accident, nvidia spent a ton of time, with developers, getting it right. FTA: >that NVIDIA had an indisputable lead, even in 2009; that for Intel to dominate NVIDIA it would have required conjuring software expertise and focus with which Intel has famously struggled Ignoring this piece is huge in claming that nvidia would be a quarter of the size. Can you even imagine Intel investing in a non-x86 developer platform for 15 years while they were in the lead?
- MBCook 2y ago
  Not the Intel we have. But if the graphics card stuff had really started to show promise, maybe they would have become an Intel that would. You’re dead right that Nvidia is where they are because of their software story and all the work they put into it. I don’t know if Intel could have learned that lesson.
  - baq 2y ago
    > I don’t know if Intel could have learned that lesson. Intel invented this model with x86.
    - therealcamino 2y ago
      Really? It doesn't seem to me like much Intel-written software has been key to x86's success. The things I can remember from Intel are compilers, performance analysis tools, and threading and math libraries. But none of them were must-haves, or differentiated x86 chips from competing CPU architectures. Most of the software that made x86 successful came from third parties. And more recently, the reviews I read of the Archmage graphics drivers didn't make it sound like Intel had understood the importance of the software that was essential to a pretty big hardware release.
      - baq 2y ago
        Your examples are simply too recent. They've been doing it since the 70s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_system_development_kit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_system_development_kit - that they forgot what made them the success they are is unfortunate, but also wholly self-inflicted.
        therealcamino 2y ago
        Those are dev boards -- hardware, not software.
- markhahn 2y ago