Nvidia - rumours of GPU socket

[FarFarAway]

Food for thought

Rumours:

It seems some vendors are saying that nvidia is testing and pushing a standard pin GPU socket. Whether or not it actually traspires is another thing altogether but its certainly a thought. Would it mean that you could buy a GPU core and GDDR3 memory to match? hmm interesting.

Still a fledgling thought but you never know

They claim that NVIDIA is working on flip chip GPU sockets for motherboards. Apparently, inside NVIDIA engineering teams have several prototypes where the GPU, rather than the CPU, is the main focus of a motherboard with two sockets: one for the GPU and another for the CPU

Cool!

Mention here

 

[PV5150]

Nice find kemp, it'd be cool if it comes about :yumyum:

 

[FarFarAway]

**UPDATE**

Apparently ATI are also toying with the idea. Only thing iss: GDDR3 has to soldered onto the board as it requres this. No chance of DIMM-like GDDR3

 

[JN]

Not sure how i feel about this.

One one hand, it could mean that 3rd party chip manufacturers could create superiour chips that work in the nVidia sockets (think how AMD started).

But on the other hand it could mean that graphics cards would become exactly the same as motherboards/processors - each component costs a fortune to replace individually and manufaturers change the layout regulary.

 

[FarFarAway]

Not sure how i feel about this.

One one hand, it could mean that 3rd party chip manufacturers could create superiour chips that work in the nVidia sockets (think how AMD started).

But on the other hand it could mean that graphics cards would become exactly the same as motherboards/processors - each component costs a fortune to replace individually and manufaturers change the layout regulary.

Hmm but then when you look at it a grahics chip costs about the same as a processor really: all the way through the ranges

 

[JN]

Hmm but then when you look at it a grahics chip costs about the same as a processor really: all the way through the ranges

True, but do you think they might start charging over the top for the graphics boards?

 

[Eguy]

**UPDATE**

Apparently ATI are also toying with the idea. Only thing iss: GDDR3 has to soldered onto the board as it requres this. No chance of DIMM-like GDDR3

of course, ATi is constantley :0wned: so they are trying to pass nv but will fail again

On another thought, I don't like the idea of everying on one board.. NF4 is already too busy

 

[FragTek]

I love this idea... I thought about how cool this idea would be many years ago and I'd love to see it come about. It'd save a lot of space and air-circulation killing due to no huge ass vid card.

I'm game!

 

[Eguy]

I love this idea... I thought about how cool this idea would be many years ago and I'd love to see it come about. It'd save a lot of space and air-circulation killing due to no huge ass vid card.

I'm game!

good arguement, but still would be too busy IMO

 

[hawkinsa21]

Pros and cons to this, obviously there would be a lot of space saved but then as Kemp mentioned, no DIMMS to upgrade/swap out..... amongst many other arguments.....

But then it may leave room for the PPU to burst into the mainstream if they ever sort it out and games producers build support into games for them......

Incase you don't know, PPU is a future add on Physics Processing Unit which in theory, will take all the physics processing power off of your CPU and GPU, as you all know how much 'true to life' physics stress the processing power of your system. This would open the flood gates for games producers no end, buy hey, I sense I'm straying slightly off topic....... :topic:

Sorry guys.......

 

[FarFarAway]

Yeah check the forum search on AGEIA and you'll find a few articles about them

 

[mimp]

Is there much point in PPUs at the moment? you can get away with running even the latest games on a fairly humble CPU provided you've got a decent video card, which suggests the CPU isn't taxed too much by games as it is. If developers aren't using the power available already to do fancy physics nonsense, what makes anyone think they'd use extra dsp umpf?

 

[FragTek]

Wirelessly posted (Nextel. Done. |: BlackBerry7520/4.0.2 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1)

Is there much point in PPUs at the moment? you can get away with running even the latest games on a fairly humble CPU provided you've got a decent video card, which suggests the CPU isn't taxed too much by games as it is. If developers aren't using the power available already to do fancy physics nonsense, what makes anyone think they'd use extra dsp umpf?

I think it would kinf of end up being a backwards operation... If these add-in cards were released with a decent price tag I think game makers would then have a reason to make their games a lot more complex to utilize the extra processing power.

Ur very right though, there currently is no demand for such a thing because games just don't require it atm.

 

[FarFarAway]

But now that they have the power there then why not use it.

The same applied to graphics cards and devs managed to get us where we are today. Seriously imagine the physics in HL3 if they had the power of dedicated physics cards to utilise :drool:

 

[mimp]

The same applied to graphics cards and devs managed to get us where we are today.

Not really, when they came out games were really stretching CPUs and most of the stretching was down to the graphics. Games aren't bringing your PC to it's knees at the moment because of the physics involved.

Also physics is a much harder thing to sell - It's easy for billy punter to see the difference between brown low res Quake 2 and mulitcoloured lightup 3dfx hi-res quake 2 as he wonders through PC World. It's not going to be that easy to sell somone falling down stairs realistically.

About time somone did something about physics tho, it can make games more fun. Thrust and Exile back on the bbc i had as a kiddie spring to mind. Don't remember them needing additional DSP but never mind..

I imagine it could do some things which would *look* pretty impressive. Particles and all that sort of nonsense i occasionally read about and pretend to understand. It'll have to if they're going to shift more then about 10 of the things.

Does seem to be the way of the future tho, what with the gfx card market, creative's dubious new fangled sound processor and now physics cards. Whatever will they come up with next?

Back on topic, a GPU socket seems to make sense. Buying all the interfacing malarkey you get with a graphics card every time you upgrade seems a little pointless as it doesn't evolve much. People want as much as possible built into motherboards whilst still being able to upgrade as much as possible.. seems like a pretty good solution. Will doubtless save somone money even if it's just nvidia.

 

[Phnom_Penh]

People want as much as possible built into motherboards whilst still being able to upgrade as much as possible.. seems like a pretty good solution. Will doubtless save somone money even if it's just nvidia.

The main problem with buiding a socket into the motherboard that could accept a seriously good gpu chip, is the heat. At the moment the cooling for Gpus is pretty heavy, especially at the higher end of the market. Putting the sockets on the motherboard would mean more cooling on the motherboard, which would be a bloody nightmare tbh.

 

[mimp]

The main problem with buiding a socket into the motherboard that could accept a seriously good gpu chip, is the heat. At the moment the cooling for Gpus is pretty heavy, especially at the higher end of the market. Putting the sockets on the motherboard would mean more cooling on the motherboard, which would be a bloody nightmare tbh.

How so? Having somthing secure you can bolt a giant heatsink onto and not having a big card blocking air flow would help matters wouldn't it? depends where they put the thing i guess..

 

[FragTek]

It would allow the use of a low profile copper cpu style heatsink (i can imagine the 1337 heatsink that thermalright would introduct now ).

Less add-in cards = better airflow = better overall temps.

 

[Phnom_Penh]

How so? Having somthing secure you can bolt a giant heatsink onto and not having a big card blocking air flow would help matters wouldn't it? depends where they put the thing i guess..

I would say the main problem is that with pci/agp cards, the heat is brought away from the motherboard, and the processor. If you had all the pu's on the motherboard, it would concentrate the heat on the board, meaning it would slow things down more, as heat causes resistance, meaning heavier cooling would be needed. The main barrier that needs to be overcome, before we can introduce things like ppus, is the heat, if we could find an effective way to deal with the heat, we could get clocks that are far greater than the ones we can get at the moment.

 

[FragTek]

I won't disagree with that argument.