Looks like Intel isn't killing the VPU after all, but instead birthing it. Larrabee, their GPU/HPC processor, is supposedly an add-in proc slated for 2009/2010. Although I'm going to put myself out on a limb and say it will probably become part-and-parcel of their mainline CPU and, instead of being a discrete co-processor, will quickly be absorbed as additional cores of their consumer processor line. But I digress.Additional information about Larrabee continues to trickle out, but it definitely seems to introduce vector processing instruction sets to be used by general computing, not just as a GPU.
Even if this comes out as a daughterboard or discrete chipset, it should be a compelling reason to pick up a good assembly programming book and start hacking again. How long will it take (non-Intel) compilers to optimize for the vector instruction sets?
