Is ATI really on par with NVIDIA now?

[d2kx]

I don't expect Larabee before Q4 2009 or Q1 2010. It was made for raytraycing, but is also able to render using existing methods.

[Kano]

It will use up to 32 Pentium MMX cores, funny way of a GFX card *g*

[Pickup]

It will use up to 32 Pentium MMX cores, funny way of a GFX card *g*

Yes but they did not say they will sell that Clarybelle chip as a video card. It is likely to be THE video counterpart for Intel-cored computers, plugged on mainboards or even embedded into the CPU itself. I suppose AMD will do the same with ATI GPUs, and we will say goodbye forever to the video card market, and NVidia will be forced to sell itself to another (which?) CPU manufacturer or close its business.

[curaga]

Now now, let's not be hasty.
The prototype will be improved upon, the final product isn't likely to consume all 300W. And there's 1-2 process shrinks coming before it's launch anyway, that should bring the consumption down.

The cores being based on i586 - so? With current tech 32 of those can be tucked into a smaller package than a single current Core2. And based, well means just that. It's not like it won't be improved over the Pentium days. We already know they will get 512-bit vector units.

[Regenwald]

the "expected" tdp will surely go down. moreover, i think that they could easily implement several power optimizations i.e. they could deactivate several cores and just activate as much as the current usage needs. just 2 cores for standard 2d, the other (30?) cores sleep or "power off"...