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RE: Intel GPU

Jason — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 23:13:45 GMT

You are quite right, Bruce, and I'm as confused as you. Larrabee (the topic of the information in the link) is/will be a standalone GPU. That was the basis for my original response to the thread. The GPU built into Intel's upcoming CPUs is not Larrabee.

RE: Intel GPU

Bruce R — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 18:24:46 GMT

Am I missing something, or did the BBC public relations release say that Intel were going to first release Larrabee as a stand-alone graphics card, competing more directly with ATI/AMD and Nvidia graphics cards ? :w00t:
I must admit that the reference to Intel having so far only supplied on-board graphics was rather confusing. ;)

RE: Intel GPU

ricedg — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 16:45:32 GMT

Smaller form factors, less power and noise seem to be the boxes that need ticking these days.

Seems to me that's exactely what these combo chips are aimed at.
Laptop SODIMMS are already cheaper than DIMMS and just as powerful.
2.5" drives are heading that way too.

Can't see we'll need the behemoths on the desk for much longer.

RE: Intel GPU

JamesW — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 21:43:08 GMT

I'm not sure how Intel or AMD are playing this, but one obvious application is in mobile and embedded devices - a basic on-chip GPU simplifies circuit board and cooling system design considerably, making everything slightly cheaper, smaller and better looking until the next trick comes along. Pin counts aren't such a problem now that serial buses are tending to replace parallel buses (PCI-E, HyperTransport etc).

It is interesting that CPU development appears to have reached a performance plateau - most people aren't short of affordable CPU power now, and even the benefits of quad-cores haven't really been proven for the majority of users, even if dual-cores are now a thing of the past.

What some people are short of (and what they will therefore pay through the nose for) is GPU power, where highly parallel processing has many more real advantages.

There's a lot to be said for the idea of a GPU with an on-board CPU. However, gaming GPUs are replaced annually by many gamers at the moment, and the pace of (and demand for) GPU development remains high enough that external plug-in solutions will be around for a while yet.

Given all that, AMD's aquisition of ATI may not have been such a bad long-term move.

RE: Intel GPU

MartenReed — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 23:33:48 GMT

[quote][b]Spedley (05/08/2008)[/b][hr]I no longer see the need for a traditional CPU.

90% of all computing tasks (word processing etc) could be done with a single cell/stream processor and the other 10% would seriously benefit from 100 GPU style processors.

Why make a computer with a CPU in the first place, make a new GPU which can do CPU tasks (which is what I believe Intel are aiming for)[/quote]

Which would then be the CPU :hehe:

RE: Intel GPU

alex3410 — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 20:34:54 GMT

AMD are in the best position then :P

RE: Intel GPU

Spedley — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 20:22:03 GMT

I no longer see the need for a traditional CPU.

90% of all computing tasks (word processing etc) could be done with a single cell/stream processor and the other 10% would seriously benefit from 100 GPU style processors.

Why make a computer with a CPU in the first place, make a new GPU which can do CPU tasks (which is what I believe Intel are aiming for)

RE: Intel GPU

Just Jon — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 18:45:49 GMT

The way I see it, CPU's are getting very powerful, and getting cooler too. Why stick a GPU in the same device to fetch temps back up?

Surely it must lead to more power going to that area of the mobo meaning thicker / more power tracks (alongside data tracks no less), while crowding the area around the CPU with the added regulatory circuits (which can also get toasty).

RE: Intel GPU

Jason — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 15:29:43 GMT

This has been on the cards for a couple of years, but it remains to be seen whether it will be a world-beater by the time it actually arrives. GPU power will probably have doubled again by the time Intel get's the flagship model out. Will it be competitive?

Intel GPU

gunman127 — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 14:55:42 GMT

[url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7540935.stm]Should be interesting[/url]

Looks like Intel won't ever need worry about buying Nvidia after all...