Intel has officially confirmed that it will not be bringing a discrete graphics product – such as the Larrabee GPGPU – to market.
“We…missed some key product milestones. Upon further assessment, we are focused on processor graphics and believe media/HD video and mobile computing are the most important areas to focus on moving forward,” Intel spokesperson Bill Kircos wrote in an official blog post.
“Our top priority continues to be around delivering an outstanding processor that addresses every day, general purpose computer needs and provides leadership visual computing experiences via processor graphics. We…continue to champion the rapid shift to mobile wireless computing and HD video – we are laser-focused on these areas.”
However, Kircos emphasized that Intel’s current 2010 Core processors featured integrated HD graphics and offered “a best-in-class solution” for the “vast majority” of PCs.
“If you choose our processors, you get a great visual experience for the bulk of what you do. We’ve even added entirely new features, such as Wireless Display right to your TV,” he explained.
“[And] our processor graphics will continue to be enhanced – with more surprises – in our 2011 Intel Core processor family, code-named Sandy Bridge.”
Meanwhile, Roger Kay, an analyst at Endpoint Techologies Associates, told the Wall Street Journal that heavy power consumption, rather than performance issues, had doomed the nascent chip.
“They couldn’t do it in the power envelope…That was really the key…And discrete graphics chips, while they get a lot of attention from gamers, really don’t represent a very large or growing market.”
