Socketed GPUs-will they see the light of the day

[pc_guy]

Originally Posted by Lead Head

It still wouldn't magically increase the available ram bandwith to the GPU. Anyways, GPU PCBs are already complex enough with the traces from the GPU to the ram. I can't imagine how much the PCBs would cost if they needed traces going from the GPU core, to a memory controller chip, then from there to the ram! It would be insane!

I don't see it increasing that much, PCB's are cheap and are easily etched to new specifications.

[Lead Head]

Originally Posted by pc_guy

I don't see it increasing that much, PCB's are cheap and are easily etched to new specifications.

Yeah, but if you have a 512bit memory bus, things can get complicated...

I don't really see socketed GPUs in the high end unless they plan to socket the RAM too.

But I can see socketed GPUs in the low/medium end...

[Techno+]

RAM shouldnt be a problem IMO, the CPU and the GPU could have shared memory, just like XBOX360. but hear they can do it with XDR. When utilising a 512 bit bus XDR provides 204 GB\S of massive bandwidth, which is more than enough for Next gen GPUs ( G80 and r600)

[Hitman]

I think eventually it will happen. Maybe not on the higher end GPUs at first. I think socket GPUs on the MoBo will be real handy for Multimedia Computers, and Small Form Factor Computers since those cases already have space restrictions.

[gvblake22]

Originally Posted by Cyberlon

I hate to sound contrary to everyone here, and I'm not really arguing... but socketed GPU's sound like a way for defective materials to get into the hands of noobs really quick. How many first timers have forgotten to put thermal grease or get the heatsink on their processor down right and ended up frying one? -- Now imagine doing that to the processor AND the graphics card...

The ball joints that solder the GPU to the card are much more reliable than pins. In a world where nanoseconds matter, and nanometers are measurable, the difference between .25mm of solder vs. 1 mm of wire connector could be a huge performance difference. (don't have specific figures, I've not taken an electrical engineering class in years.)

I would forsee bent pins, misaligned polarity causing system damage, and many other possible problems that it takes a bigger idiot than I to think of properly.

There are always going to be "uninformed" (usually referred to as stupid) people that will manage to mess something up. Processors have managed to survive this long without more people screwing them up than not, so I would imagine a socketed GPU would be no different.

Originally Posted by Cyberlon

How many people upgrade their video cards so often that simply using a faster processor would make that big of a difference? I jumped from a 4x AGP card back in the day to an 8X card, just upgrading the processor wouldn't have given me that kind of jump in performance. After that card I moved to a new core with faster RAM on the video card, and once again the upgradeable option would not have been sufficient. Maybe that's why they aren't on the market right now.

That's exactly the reason why we have dedicated processors for graphics, because the central processing unit (CPU) is designed specifically for computing intense 3D geometries and textures. It is no suprise that a graphics card upgrade yielded more gaming performance than a processor upgrade (since the graphics card is the one that is doing most of the work in games). But if you wanted better performance in photoshop or for file compression or for encoding/decoding/ripping, etc, you would get a higher performance boost from a processor upgrade rather than a graphics card upgrade. That's the whole reason the two are separate

[JazzyJake]

Originally Posted by Hitman

I think eventually it will happen. Maybe not on the higher end GPUs at first. I think socket GPUs on the MoBo will be real handy for Multimedia Computers, and Small Form Factor Computers since those cases already have space restrictions.

i think hitman has a point
i was actually thinking the same thing while reading this
like those teenie HP's that are like 4 inches thick and 10 inches both other ways

[Hitman]

Originally Posted by JazzyJake

i think hitman has a point
i was actually thinking the same thing while reading this
like those teenie HP's that are like 4 inches thick and 10 inches both other ways

The only issue I see is a lot of MultiMedia and SFF Cases only fit Mini ATX MoBo, and the space is already cramped on those things. However the board wouldn't require a PCI-e slot and probably only one or two PCI slots. So it could work.