Discretely socketing components

[Stiganator]

Why exactly do we use cards instead of just little chips like CPUs? It seems like that implementation would be better.

Do you think with rumors of ATI AMD merger that we may see something like this? or perhaps a completely integrated ATI perfomance card on and AMD motherboard?

What are the benefits or potential drawbacks of the design?

 

[Bowsky]

Well may add-in cards such as graphics and audio cards require more than just a processor. They require their own RAM, IO ports, cooling, and other electronical pieces that would be extremely difficult to fit onto a CPU size package. Just looking at the size of the PCB required to fit all the components.

Another draw back I can think of it the the implementation of IO ports with a socket like implementation of addin cards. Just taking a look at audio cards, the combination of different outputs is nuts. If they were to move that device to a socket chip, they would need some way to get those IO jacks to the user.

 

[Stiganator]

makes sense, I figured they just used bigger parts because it was cheaper and you could integrate it all if you wanted to.

 

[BrownTown]

then why did you tihnk all the other stuff on the PCB did just look good?

A video card has its own processor, memmory, IO interface, power circuitry etc... Pretty much just a small motherboard.

 

[cheesehead]

Originally posted by: Bowsky
Well may add-in cards such as graphics and audio cards require more than just a processor. They require their own RAM, IO ports, cooling, and other electronical pieces that would be extremely difficult to fit onto a CPU size package. Just looking at the size of the PCB required to fit all the components.

Another draw back I can think of it the the implementation of IO ports with a socket like implementation of addin cards. Just taking a look at audio cards, the combination of different outputs is nuts. If they were to move that device to a socket chip, they would need some way to get those IO jacks to the user.

Many GPU's are made on a 130 nanometer or smaller processes. However, much of the RAM is made on a much larger and very different process.
Remember, the Pentium 4 Xeon had nearly double the die size from an additional 2mb of cache. Adding 512mb to a graphics card GPU would make them cost about as much as a Porsche, especially after you consider that the more complex you make something, the more of them will have flaws and need to be scrapped.

 

[Stiganator]

what if it were to have its own RAM slot. Upgradable video RAM .

 

[Mark R]

Originally posted by: Stiganator
what if it were to have its own RAM slot. Upgradable video RAM .

This used to be done by some manufacturers - the socket, however, is a problem.

The socket is a relatively expensive part, and increases costs - the socket also increases the wire length and degrades the signals between the RAM and GPU.

While the degradation was acceptable with old-generation RAM and GPUs, the current generation require such high performance from the interconnection that anything other than soldering both GPU and RAM directly to an advanced PCB won't work.