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Intel Larrabee architecture details revealed - TechAmok
Intel Larrabee architecture details revealed - [hardware] 06:40 PM EDT - Aug,04 2008 - post a comment A
new chip unveiled by hardware maker Intel is hoping to take graphics
processing back to the x86 instruction set while still offering DirectX and
OpenGL support. The chip will be offered as discrete chip on motherboards as
well as a standalone processor to compete directly with the GeForce and Radeon
products.
Dubbed
"Larrabee", the chip was unveiled at this year's SIGGRAPH conference and
sports a variety of new technical features, including a fully coherent memory
subsystem which allows for more efficient multi-chip implementation. Should the
x86-based graphical rendering capabilities prove viable to developers, Larrabee
could serve as a cost-efficient alternative to expensive PC video cards, such as
those produced by AMD and Nvidia.
- An x86-compatible basic processing core derived from the original Pentium.
This core has been heavily modified to include a 16-ALU-wide vector unit for use
in Larrabee. Each core has L1 instruction and data caches plus a 256KB L2 cache,
all fully coherent
- A 1024-bit ring bus (512 bits in each direction) for inter-core communication.
This bus will carry data between the cores and other major units on the chip,
including data being shared between the cores' individual L2 cache partitions
and the cache coherency traffic needed to keep track of it all.
- Very little fixed-function logic. Most stages of the traditional graphics
pipeline will run as programs on Larabee's processing cores, including primitive
setup, rasterization, and back-end frame buffer blending. The major exception
here is texture sampling, where Intel has chosen to use custom logic for texture
decompression and filtering. Intel expects this approach to yield efficiency
benefits by allowing for very fine-grained load balancing; each stage of the
graphics pipeline will occupy the shaders only as long as necessary, and no
custom hardware will sit idle while other stages are processed.
- DirectX and OpenGL support via tile-based deferred rendering. With Larrabee's
inherent programmability, support for traditional graphics APIs will run as
software layers on Larrabee, and Intel has decided to implement those renderers
using a tile-based deferred rendering approach similar to the one last seen on
the PC in the Kyro II chip. My sense is that tile-based deferred rendering can
be very bandwidth-efficient, but may present compatibility problems at first
since it's not commonly used on the PC today. Should be interesting to see how
it fares in the wild.
- A native C/C++ programming mode for all-software renderers. Graphics
developers will have the option of bypassing APIs like OpenGL altogether and
writing programs for Larrabee using Intel's C/C++-style programming model. They
wouldn't get all of the built-in facilities of an existing graphics API, but
they'd gain the ability to write their own custom rendering pipelines with
whatever features they might wish to include at each and every stage.
Dunno if it's just me, but I see a lot of promise in this architecture. If they get the drivers right... |
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