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88 Comments
- TheG2, on 10/12/2007, -0/+52You had to figure this was going to happen eventually. Its probably one of the main reasons AMD bought them anyhow.
- IHaveIssues, on 10/12/2007, -3/+38@metallica
It's funny how you're trying to sound smart but the opposite result occurs.
Stay in school. - robbh66, on 10/12/2007, -3/+31I can see this happening in really low-end systems that use chips that dont have alot of heat output. Forgetaboutit for high-end stuff.
- dobesov, on 10/12/2007, -0/+23Before the aquisition AMD was talking about an add in sockect for something else...
It looks to me like the new Co-Processor will be a GPU.
Its all good news for laptops, any way i look at it... - chris9902, on 10/12/2007, -2/+23@metalica77
so you work as an engineer for AMD and ATI?
no? I would never have guessed. - Giever, on 10/12/2007, -2/+18No, metalica77, this sucker's electrical. It just needs the nuclear reaction to produce the 1.21 gigawatts it uses.
- dshPls, on 10/12/2007, -5/+20"the thing will be neucler."
Ok GW - Derrekito, on 10/12/2007, -1/+16sounds perfect for mobile chips!
- ROFISH, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12Now we have the ENTIRE Northbridge on a CPU now?
- Topher06, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12Why not so plausible?
The GPU is only used because it has highly specialized logic and instructions that cater to 3D rendering. There is nothing miraculous about the GPU only that it is a highly specialized processor.
If you take your basic general purpose CPU, and build in all the highly specialized logic that a GPU has, then your single CPU can handle both general purpose computing AND high performance 3D rendering.
Consider that these days everybody is putting two of everything in the same chip, why not have a C/GPU multi-core processor included in the lineup? - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -14/+23I do think this will happen in the not-so-distant future but I too, think this story itself is probably *****.
- M1ndless, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10Wasn't it the inquirer who initially reported on the ATI+AMD merger and no one believed them? I admit they have a bad rep, but this story is pretty logical. The first step will most likely be socket AM2 GPUs, then an on die low end GPU for integrated graphics; heat won't be much of a problem as long as they keep the number of pipelines down. This is all part of AMD's plans to become more platform based, like Intel.
- nonsequitor, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8DAAMIT is an AMD ATI anagram
- MrTimmay, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8Yeah, try the "Check Spelling" button next time please.
Most AMD CPUs are actually a lot cooler than 55C load with stock cooling, unless.. idk you're outside in the desert in the sun or something - ever hear of AC? As far as GPUs are concerned.. There is no way they could possibly combine a 1900 series gpu w/a CPU (have ya looked at the size of the boards those are on??) - so there's no need to compare how hot those are. We're talking more like x1300 or x1400 - they type of GPUs found in laptops currently. - merreborn, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Every motherboard with an 'integrated' graphics chip (read: EVERY MOTHERBOARD) uses shared memory for video.
This is just a replacement for on-the-motherboard graphics. It's *not* a high-end rendering solution. - Kuipo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7It's possible (like robbh66 mentioned) for mobile chips or for really low end computers. It would really benefit the laptop industry since you would only have to worry about cooling one thing and it would take up less space. But yes, for higher end PC's... Worthless. But then you think about how many of the PC's out there are really "High end"
- josegutz, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8"DAAMIT engineers will be looking to shift to 65 nanometre if not even to 45 nanometre to make such a complex chip as a CPU/GPU possible."
Why is this guy cursing at engineers? - cohortq, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Anyone remember the Cyrix media on a chip?
- nushto, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7@tarzan99:
The ENquirer is a tabloid that talks about Britney Spears and who she is f*ing... which is not the same thing as the INquirer.
Can't say I believe the story, but the fact still stands that those two publications are not the same. - merreborn, on 10/12/2007, -9/+13"This story smells like *****."
It *is* the inquirer. Doesn't that whole rag smell like *****? - dclowd9901, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5"This story smells like *****."
I agree. Notice there isn't a single quote, not even a single name attributed in this article. It doesn't even attribute a rumor. Or a press release.
There is nothing in this article that directly ties to either AMD or ATI except for the mention of their names. Shoddy reporting from the Inquirer once again. - arfox, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Uh.. The GPU doesn't work like that. Right now you probably have 4 to 16 texture units (cores) and 1 to 8 vertex shader units (cores) and several pixel shader units (cores)
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5While I know computers well enough to understand the title, it's certainly confusing. AMD-ATI to make GPU-CPU... imagine the laymen making sense of that.
- MikeCerm, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Current GPUs are so hot partially because they use 130nm process. Nvidia and ATI are fab-less, and 130nm is more "cost-effective" for the 3rd party manufacturers. This will change if ATI has access to AMDs fabs, which they will obviously will if they're doing a CPU-GPU hybrid. @ 65nm, they'd be half the (physical) size, faster, and generate much less heat.
- nreynolds, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I don't know if its true or not, but the story is written REALLY badly.
"CPUs are being shrunk to a 65 nanometre process as we speak and the graphics guys are expected to migrate to this process next year. The graphics firms are still playing with 80 nanometre but will ultimately go to 65 nanometre later next year."
- dang, it's really good they didn't repeat themselves at all... - cremate, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3They should ban the inquirer or atleast give a warning....
- sneakerelph, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Because no one believes them?
- MikeCerm, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5While I'm not sure the Inquirer can be trusted, I'm sure that this will happen. Also, keep in mind that both Nvidia and ATI currently use 130nm process. When AMD moves to 65nm, there will be plenty of room on die to integrate a GPU. They'll need to use as much silicon as their current 90nm chips and the heat dissipation will be the same, but they'll have no problem fitting it in. They're going to need another socket though, if they want dual-core and GPU.
- nonsequitor, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4This story is old news that the inquirer is trying to make new again. I remember reading a statement about this the day of the ATI acquisition.
This computer on a chip is targeted at ultra-mobile hardware, imagine a Pocket PC with an ultra low power dual core (1 core CPU, 1 core GPU) chip clocked at 1 GHz. I still think laptops will still use full chipsets, since AMD is going to start making their own integrated graphics solution for mobo's to compete with Intel in that space. - StarDal, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Am I the only one that can hear Star Trek's Chekov saying "nuclear wessals" after that?
- Chordonblue, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3QUESTION: Why would AMD buy ATI? What possible gain do they get from them?
QUESTION: Why is Intel scarfing up every graphics engineer they can find?
My conclusion is that both AMD and Intel are planning single-chip systems with decent gfx accelleration. This has been tried before - Intel pulled Banias before it had a chance to breathe (who knows why - probably poor performance). AMD has the Geode (gotten from Nat Semi), but it is teh suck - big time.
The thing is, you can't do a Vista-ready cpu/gpu without having some fairly kick-ass 3D ability available. This sort of thing could only be done with the help of major tech and patents. It would be foolish in the extreme to think this is NOT being worked on now. AMD bought their tech, apparently Intel is going to develop their own. Only time will tell who made the right decision - but I personally think AMD (while putting themselves into major debt), will come out ahead of the game in the end. - rbanffy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2And it also could open up GPU-like logic to funcion as a kick-ass vector processor. And being part of the official instruction set, some real HPC software could be written for it.
I say it's very interesting. HPC people must start pestering AMD to get a peek. - fodder0, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2lol, how can you call this BS?
this is what many people in the industry have been talking about for years... why else would AMD buy ATI if they were not going to do this? Obviously this is true, but its still several years off. - Brkwtzandrew, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2For every problem there is a solution (usually). Pretty much what everyone is saying is that with the current technology today a cpu-gpu combo is not possible. That might be true which means that amd-ati will have to invent new technology to create a product like this, then it will be possible.
- noseeme, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Yes, this is completely possible, I don't see why anyone would think this would be impossible. It just wouldn't perform as well as a full blown CPU plus a PCI Express graphics card, unless the thing is made as a bigger peice of silicon, which is unlikely.
I don't know about the Inquirer, as they lack citation most of the time. Fuad (or Fudo as they call him) could just be pulling this out of his ass. - MikeCerm, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Hypertransport is really fast. If they don't just share the main memory, a little off-chip bank of memory could be used.
This hybrid won't be used, at least not initially, for high-end graphics, so access to expensive, super high-speed memory isn't the biggest deal in the world. - takahashi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2That is completely untrue. Not only is it possible its plausible and likely to happen. current GPUs are all made a "primitive" 90nm processes. The article even states they want to do this on a 65nm or 45nm die. at 65nm you have almost double the die space and 45nm gives you FOUR times the die space. I'm sure with 2-4 times the die space they can find a way to "cram" a GPU on there. Also the thermals are not as big of an issue. Motherboards and cases are designed with cooling CPUs in mind. When ATX was created they did not see a need to cool the video card. Moving graphics to the CPU will make everything easier to cool. Besides, remember when dual core was new? A dual core CPU of the current generation does not take twice the power of the older generation single core CPUS. In fact in most cases it takes less!
- macenthe, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3What about video memory? Are we going to revert back to shared memory for video rendering with this? I don't see them jamming 256MB of VRAM on to this chip as well. Otherwise this doesn't seem that much better than any sort of integrated video. It sounds like a good idea off hand, but until there is some concrete information and design on this I'm skeptical.
- Electrawn, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2A lot of transistor circuits on GPUs and CPUs are redundant.
Imagine some sort of dynamic microcode that could reconfigure parts of the CPU/GPU combo on the fly for processing or 3D rendering depending on load.
Also, with the GPU and CPU on the same chip, you don't have to fling it out to an external bus and worry about various pipeline issues with the bus and AGP/PCI Express bridges and the like. I'm sure the memory controller and or on board cache would have to be beefed up significantly. - hzmp32001, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2While I think it is possible, and OEM's would definitely be attracted to it for lower cost, Highend, performance demanding users won't have it... that is not to say it won't happen, but it's not going to change the world. There will always be a demand for higher performance. If a platform required that you upgrade your CPU and graphics card at the same time, most of us would not buy into it.
NOW if AMD made a standard GPU socket and made the specs available to competitors, and gave it direct access to CPU and memory, well then we might have something good. You could upgrade your GPU independent of your CPU and it would still allow for competition. THAT would be truly revolutionary. OR if AMD released chips that could perform either function at the flick of a BIOS switch... or independently allocate cores THAT would be cool. If you could still purchase high performance modules independently.
OK, this is getting too long... back to work - DavidDigg, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2In case anyone didn't notice, AMD already has a dual-core CPU and is going for a quad-core pretty soon. Unfortunately desktop users have ALMOST NO USE in a dual-core CPU, let alone a quad-core. So the heat problem is not serious. Why not? I think Sony did the same thing with the PS2.
- Rickler, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Don't get this site mistaken as the "National Enquirer".
- SuperSloth, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1System on a chip (SOC) is nothing new, guys.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System-on-a-chip - metalica77, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I didn't know that the talk was about low end PCs. I'm sorry. I guess then if it was a combination between a low end gpu and a low end cpu it would work out.
- dapperdrake, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1The Intel integrated chips are that bad. I have one in my laptop and it's decent for most games except the newest.
- Corvillus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1This probably will happen, it's the most logical thing for AMD to do after making this purchase. With AMD lagging behind Intel right now, this might be just the ticket to take back the performance crown.
That said, this article wasn't just badly sourced, it had no source at all, so it should be taken with a grain of salt as nothing but blind speculation. - MarcTheLad, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1And when there aren't any graphically intensive tasks running OR if someone makes a multitasking OS for GPUs, AMD would have an awesome vector processor at their disposal. It'd have super low latency since it's next to the CPU die AND be faster overall since the GPU wouldn't utilize the PCIe bus.
http://www.gpgpu.org/ - mdmadph, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1sounds like a good idea, and a way to possibly offer an even lower combo-mb than intel.
- sneakerelph, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Upgrading graphics independent of the CPU? It cannot be done!
/sarcasm - Yaku83, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Well, I expected something like this. However, the rumored 18 month wait period means I won't be building a new system anytime soon.
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