I was reading today about the path that AMD is taking with their processor lineup. One of the things that immediately caught my eye was an idea that AMD has about the changes in the graphics cores we will be seeing in a couple of years. The really strange thing about this is that I had asked these questions a couple of years ago, when graphics cards started taking up more than 2 slots on the motherboard, costing more than the motherboard and processor together, and being the largest consumer of the power supply pie.

It seems that AMD is recommending that the next generation of GPUs should sit directly on the motherboard, in some sort of pin package (PGA or BGA). This would be analogous [physically, that is] to the 386 generation machines having a socket for a 387 math coprocessor. If a little thought is given, it becomes an amazing concept, with so many benefits. The placement of the GPU on the motherboard would free up the bus slots on the motherboard now occupied by cooling apparatus, trying to keep these behemoths cool. With the GPU sitting on the plane of the motherboard, similar heat sink and fan combinations could be used for both processors. Due to the graphics assembly residing directly on the main board, the power to the GPU could be delivered in large traces, instead of added wires which make cooling that much more complex.

The only thing that will hinder the adoption of this sort of system is lack of cooperation amongst vendors. I would surmise that Intel would be the greatest stumbling block, if only because they were not first to speak of this. (Remember when Intel had to accept the 64bit extensions to the x86 instruction set?)

Time will tell (it always does).

[tags]AMD, processor, coprocessor, computer, CPU[/tags]