Intel Larrabee - a prototype

RazorWind said:
Bumping this thread, Linus Tech Tips apparently got their hands on this thing. He didn't manage to get it working, but it's interesting to see nevertheless.

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Wow, this was extremely interesting and Linus seems very knowledgeable. Why do so many users here hate him?
 
In all fairness, I would rather the Larrabee GPU go to Linus (who I found out is located in Canada) than seen the card confiscated by Intel (or a scammer) and either destroyed or stolen.
Both the gtechccs and myself have 100% positive feedback, and I don't believe he was trying to screw me over as much as avoid legal trouble, which does coincided with what he stated to me back in November last year.

I will give gtechccs respect in the fact that he did get back to me promptly, and admitted his shortcomings (hopefully this is all indeed true), but it would have been nice if he had communicated this a bit better to both erek and I, since we were legitimate bidders (and a winner with prompt payment).
It does sadden me that neither erek, nor myself, were able to obtain the GPU, but perhaps Linus will be able to continue on with it.

I did rewatch the video again, and unless I am mistaken, never explicitly stated that he would continue to work on getting the Larrabee GPU functioning, and did appear to just give up, though I certainly hope this isn't the case.
Thanks everyone for your support and interest in this, especially erek! (y)

I never expected something like this to happen, and I do really hope someone is able to contact Linus and either obtain the GPU, or at least have him continue to work on it much further than he did in the video. :)
 
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erek said:
Agreed, but i wonder Linus' team involvement with underhandedly circumventing the eBay Auction to get it...
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It could have been, but gtechccs' message to me would seem to indicate otherwise.
Technically speaking, while I did indeed win the auction, gtechccs canceled my order and refunded my money in full within a very short time after winning, which while it was not ethically right, he did legally have the right (via ebay's terms of service) to do this, so I couldn't really give him a negative review for it.

If he hadn't refunded my money, well, that would have been different, but fortunately for both of us that wasn't the case.
However, if Linus is just going to let that Larrabee GPU sit on a shelf and collect dust at this point, perhaps he would be willing to either give or sell it back to you, erek.

I would much rather see it in your hands at this point as you are the one who was kind enough to share the listing with all of us - but please be careful on the legal side of things! :)
I don't know how gtechccs obtained the Larrabee GPU officially, and considering in his last message to me that he was "near to the Intel campus", it really makes me wonder if it wasn't taken without permission somehow - this is all conjecture on my part, though, and I do not know for certain, so please take it with the evidence given with a grain of salt.
 
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Renato said:
Wow, this was extremely interesting and Linus seems very knowledgeable. Why do so many users here hate him?
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because he didnt cover anything useful or put in any decent effert to actually run the thing. if he does that in another video i dont mind but if he just leaves it at this and doesnt touch the card again i would have much rather had the card fall into the hands of someone actually knowledgeable.
 
cdabc123 said:
because he didnt cover anything useful or put in any decent effert to actually run the thing. if he does that in another video i dont mind but if he just leaves it at this and doesnt touch the card again i would have much rather had the card fall into the hands of someone actually knowledgeable.
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I am not talking about the hate in this thread, that I understand, but he is insulted all over the site in other threads with just random, generic insults
 
Red Falcon said:
I don't know how gtechccs obtained the Larrabee GPU officially, and considering in his last message to me that he was "near to the Intel campus", it really makes me wonder if it wasn't taken without permission somehow - this is all conjecture on my part, though, and I do not know for certain, so please take it with the evidence given with a grain of salt.
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I thought in the video Linus said a contractor found it in a garbage bin waiting to be destroyed.
 
Renato said:
I am not talking about the hate in this thread, that I understand, but he is insulted all over the site in other threads with just random, generic insults
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Different intended audiences. [H] concentrates pretty much exclusively on enthusiast custom PC hardware, whereas Linus' target audience is interested much more broadly in consumer electronics in general, but only superficially in PC stuff. He used to be a lot more [H] in his early days, when he worked NCIX, but these days, his audience is apparently more interested in laptops and cell phones.

From the standpoint of PC enthusiast who enjoys assembling a computer from parts, a media outlet that talks mostly about laptops and cell phones is likely to be perceived as being "for n00bs."
 
Linus:
upload_2018-5-17_11-21-55.png



Ebay: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-Larrabee-a-prototype-of-the-cancelled-Intel-GPU-/232564439281?ul_noapp=true&nma=true&si=27o%2BTY3bBkJlncq0PYd8A%2BuHz4s%3D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

s-l1600.jpg



it';s flippin bullcrap
 
erek said:
he said eBay at 19 seconds or so:

Red Falcon said: ↑

I don't know how gtechccs obtained the Larrabee GPU officially, and considering in his last message to me that he was "near to the Intel campus", it really makes me wonder if it wasn't taken without permission somehow - this is all conjecture on my part, though, and I do not know for certain, so please take it with the evidence given with a grain of salt.
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Not where Linus got it, duh, but where the SELLER got it - 50 secs in
 
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Found this thread from the video comments.
Sorry to learn about what happened to your bid Red Falcon

I do hope there's a silver lining to it, that some former engineer saw Linus' video and decided to help him get it working, lol

I did learned many new things about Larabee watching the video. I was one of those who thought it was all about Intel trying to make a gaming GPU.
Never occurred to me that it was a stepping stone for a GPGPU
 
Everybody here talking crap about Linus, okay.... I'm honestly interested in something else.

Does the seller know you are posting his unedited messages, with link to his ebay account, in a public forum for everyone to view?
I'm PRETTY DAMN SURE that last message was intended to be for your eyes only.
He trusted you enough to share the full story, and you go ratting him out in public just to prove the point that Linus's card was supposed to be yours?
 
I can perfectly agree with that sentiment if you're passionate about it.
I've also been a bit harsh to you with my message, so I apologize about that.

Here's my thoughs about this.

- From people I know that have ties with Intel, it's a fact that they are SERIOUS about crushing anyone they find selling ES.

- He probably crapped his pants really hard when Intel came to him. If he wanted the card out of the US asap in a panic, what he did is probably a direct offer to anyone that bid and wasn't in the US (as a seller you can see other's nationalities) and I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't know before this that the canadian one was actually LTT.

- Linus says he payed 400$, but if it was a direct offer he probably payed a bit less than you but with a massive surcharge for the one day international shipping. I don't think he had the initiative in making a superior bid to you, and when confronted with a potential lawsuit I'm also sure that the last thing in the seller's mind was "hey, it's Linus, let's just sell it to him for a few extra bucks!"

- In the end the card was yours, YES. But the seller decided to violate ebay's policies and risk at worst a negative feedback rather than, well, giving the card back or risking criminal charges for him and maybe even bringing you into the trouble. I can understand that - and one has also to understand that even if it doesn't sound like the smartest decision to you, you really don't make the best decisions ever when you're in panic mode. If his priority was not to get the card destroyed, he also probably figured out that Intel would be much more lenient to LTT rather than a random private user that has zero negotiating power with them.

- I'm very sure Linus doesn't want, and also doesn't need, to do the shady deals that are implied in the thread. His job - and the job of all his employees - depends in the end on our good opinions of him. He cares about not pissing off enthusiasts precisely because he is also one and he knows very well that we can have a lot of influence when we want. I'm confident that if it wasn't for this mess and the card went to you instead, LTT would've gladly contacted you for lending it to him. It would've also been easier and cheaper for him, if you think about it.

This is of course just my opinion from the facts I've read and I could be totally wrong.
I think that a lot of these negative opinions are a big misunderstanding, and precisely because of this I feel very bad about all the evidence against the seller that's been posted in here in, imho, a very irresponsible and careless way.
 
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Yeah, the only reason I hate Linus for getting involved is because he is the video equivalent to PC Gamer Magazine. He's a lot of flash and substance on the surface, with his loads of hardware to review, and his air of authority as he presents and draws conclusions from maybe 3 benchmark results. But in the end of the day he isn't much of a tweaker, and he lacks any sort of engineering insight when evaluating unexpected results from his benchmarks or from evaluating engineering samples like this.

He's the last person I'd be satisfied entrusted with a piece of engineering history. So yeah, fuck him and his Youtube channel so hard for ever getting involved.

Linus is not the kind of person who would ever have uncovered Quack3 and done the research on how the drivers optimized the game, or pushed the Pentium 3 1.13 GHz till it failed, and actually investigated. He just publishes benchmarks like any other review site.
 
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I honestly don't mind the guy but it's more for projects like the all room watercooling
 
{NG}Fidel said:
I honestly don't mind the guy but it's more for projects like the all room watercooling
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Linus does some nutty stuff and it's fun to watch. He's also really honest and willing to admit when he's wrong. He also calls out vendors for stupid shit. I think he and Kyle would actually get along really well. He was certainly pulling for Kyle on the whole nVidia GPP thing.
 
GilmourD said:
Linus does some nutty stuff and it's fun to watch. He's also really honest and willing to admit when he's wrong. He also calls out vendors for stupid shit. I think he and Kyle would actually get along really well. He was certainly pulling for Kyle on the whole nVidia GPP thing.
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I would think Kyle would argue that point. If anything Linus did absolutely nothing in pushing forward the issues with GPP.
 
GilmourD said:
Linus does some nutty stuff and it's fun to watch. He's also really honest and willing to admit when he's wrong. He also calls out vendors for stupid shit. I think he and Kyle would actually get along really well. He was certainly pulling for Kyle on the whole nVidia GPP thing.
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I'll agree with "Linus... really honest and willing to admit when he's wrong." just as soon as he acknowledges this situation and attempts to make it right or at least explains his side of the story. I imagine this is being swept under the rug as a form of damage control. I find it very hard to believe that Linus is unaware of the situation. The YouTube comment about the situation on the "WE GOT INTEL'S PROTOTYPE GRAPHICS CARD!!" is the most upvoted comment on the video with over 2,100 upvotes and 70 comments. The video posted on their paid subscription website "FloatPlane" also has comments talking about the situation. Linus himself has commented in that thread but has yet to address the issue. When I cancelled my FloatPlane subscription, I also stated this controversy and lack of transparency as my reason for cancelling.

I've watched LTT for years. Not so much to learn, but for the entertainment value. Things like "Scrapyard Wars", "Whole Room Watercooling", "7 Gamers, 1 CPU" were a lot of fun to watch. I was a paid member of Vessel (LTT's previous paid subscription before FloatPlane), and hopped aboard FloatPlane as soon as Vessell went under.

No more.

If LMG is going to use their cash and sway as YouTube celebrities to kick us regular enthusiasts square in the teeth so they can get more video/page views, they can GET FUCKED.

It's not much, but voting with my wallet is about the only thing I can do other than pester them about their shadiness any time they talk about big companies like Apple not looking out for the consumers.
 
Amazing how even Intel resorts to using those shit "squirrel cage" fans.
 
cdabc123 said:
Um those fans are way better then the ultra thin ones they put on gpus in terms of airflow. And they actually expel the heat from the case
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Heat in cases between both types has been tested before, iirc there's only about 3-4 c in it.

Prefer a negligibly warmer case to those irritating blower fans. Why state the obvious about a blower fan dumping heat outside the case? We've been aware of that since they started using them over a decade ago.
 
Chris_B said:
Heat in cases between both types has been tested before, iirc there's only about 3-4 c in it.

Prefer a negligibly warmer case to those irritating blower fans. Why state the obvious about a blower fan dumping heat outside the case? We've been aware of that since they started using them over a decade ago.
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Because it's a advantage of blowers. If I stated cars are shitty. And someone said they are great to move people around it would be the same thing. Yes it's obvious but it's a point of the discussion
 
cdabc123 said:
Because it's a advantage of blowers. If I stated cars are shitty. And someone said they are great to move people around it would be the same thing. Yes it's obvious but it's a point of the discussion
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It's not as big of an advantage as people make it out to be. Yes it dumps heat outside of the case but blower cards generally run hotter and louder than triple axial fans. And at only a few c difference inside the case (not the 10 or 15c difference people seem to think it is) I'd take a cooler and quieter card over the alternative.
 
Chris_B said:
It's not as big of an advantage as people make it out to be. Yes it dumps heat outside of the case but blower cards generally run hotter and louder than triple axial fans. And at only a few c difference inside the case (not the 10 or 15c difference people seem to think it is) I'd take a cooler and quieter card over the alternative.
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And I would take a noisy card with the ability to actually dissipate alot of heat over the alternitive
 
cdabc123 said:
And I would take a noisy card with the ability to actually dissipate alot of heat over the alternitive
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Considering triple fan cards generally run cooler than blower cards by a good few c it's those that do better with heat dissipation.

Yes a few c of that stays inside the case but overall the GPU can be 10c plus cooler depending on the card.
 
Slaventus86 said:
I tried to launch my Larrabee card
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Wow, you made it farther than I would have, and great idea using those Xeon Phi drivers, that was a great try.
Even I wouldn't have thought to use those - very resourceful, I really hope that you can keep chipping away at it.

In just a few minutes, you did more than Linus has done in the months he has had the card - bravo, and thank you very much for sharing this with us! (y)


erek said:
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Thank you for sharing this and notifying us, it is much appreciated! :)
Seriously, this is so exciting to finally see, and with great quality in the video and video editing to boot.

Seeing the Intel i740 and its original packaging was also a welcome bonus in the video as well.
 
Xeon Phi driver tries to load Linux image for Knights Corner into the card, but Tom Forsyth told me that Larrabee cards were working with an instance of FreeBSD inside. So without correct software it is not possible to launch that card.
 
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