Intel to ship Larrabee graphics chip in early 2010

15.04.2009
Intel Corp.'s Larrabee graphics processor, which is expected to challenge Nvidia Inc. and ATI Corp. in the high-performance desktop and gaming PC market, will arrive early next year, the chipmaker's CEO said during a quarterly earnings call on Tuesday.

Larrabee will go into "volume introduction...early next year," said CEO Paul Otellini during with Wall Street analysts.

Intel is "debugging" the silicon chip itself, Otellini said. "The silicon will get ready, or get better, over the course of the year. The software gets finished over the course of the year."

Intel already dominates the market for integrated graphics, which are graphics chips that come attached with a CPU. They're popular in laptop PCs and in business desktops where 3-D graphics or high-resolution video is not needed.

The highly-anticipated Larrabee GPU will be the for add-on graphics cards that users buy separately and plug into the slots of their desktop computer.

Though the market for add-on cards is small and it is a profitable segment, with top-end graphics cards selling for hundreds of dollars. Intel's entry is also symbolically important as it opens up a