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In response to a question from me about where we should expect Larrabee to fall performance-wise with respect to high-end GPUs from AMD and NVIDIA, Gelsinger told me flat-out: "We want to win. So in the high-end space, running traditional gaming applications—DX, OpenGL, etc.—we will win. And when you take advantage of its unique characteristics, and some of the more advanced techniques that it will enable, it will shine."

And so it is that Intel is diving feet head first back into a market that it bailed on in defeat after the debacle that was the i740. This time around, Intel is betting big that things will be different, hence all the tough talk from the highest levels of the company.

I have to admit that I'm still skeptical, and, for a variety of reasons that I'll go into in a later article, would estimate that Larrabee will debut at roughly a 20% performance deficit from the very top-end NVIDIA GPU on DirectX games, but Gelsinger is definitely a believer, and to a degree that almost sold me. But unfortunately for Gelsinger, it will take benchmarks to close that sale.