GPU mounted directly on motherboard

[Denithor]

Have wondered about this for a few years, never seen anything like it but thought it would be cool.

Could they put a socket on the motherboard so you could just install the GPU you wanted and use high performance cooling (like we do now with CPU)? Seems like they could directly connect the two processors more efficiently that way (instead of connecting through PCIe slot) and it could improve the bandwidth to/from the GPU. It should also reduce the cost significantly as you wouldn't need the extras on the video card anymore.

I guess you would also have to install dedicated video RAM somewhere for this to work?

 

[wrongwaydownup]

ERROR: not Highly Technical

 

[jonmullen]

Hate to say it, but in a way your idea has already come and gone. Back in the day there were math co processors, and although GPUs in a way are be coming math co processors of sorts I don't think general hardware trends are moving in the direction you seem to be talking about. Obviously there are integrated graphics as seen by intel and some nforce boards, but those are not replaceable. Although what you say is possible it is not really likely to move that way. If anything GPU like execution units are more likely to show up on the die of future CPUs. Plus I think you under estimate what all goes into a GPU, it is more than just a processing core chip like a CPU.

 

[BrownTown]

its called "integrated graphics" and thats what you do for the lowest end boards or most laptops. Basically yeah of course its possible to put everything on the same board but it makes no sense because you would have to choose a motherboard based both on the CPU support and the CPU support, and if you ever wanted to upgrade either you'd have to but an entire new board. So it only makes sense for the lowest end or in laptops where you pretty much assume the consumer is never going to change any of the hardware out and that they won't care too much about not having the highest end stuff either way. Putting the video on its own card just maks more sense because the card has memmory and power supplies tailored for the individual GPU instead of having it on the motherboard where if you bought a low end GPU you would have bought a lot of wasted stuff on the motherboard which your crappy CPU didn't really need but which had to be there in case you ever got a new GPU. And if you wanted the higest end you might need to by a whole new motherboard because your mobo only had 512MB 1.3ns memmory and you wanted 1024MB 1.1ns or needed the 300W power supply and you only had the 200W one.

 

[lyssword]

780g amd motherboard (best integrated graphics atm) is almost exact same chip as a 2400xt. You can even OC it to 1000mhz. The problem is that most video cards have much better memory speed. Also you'd need a specially-designed motherboard to handle high-end gpu's that can pull 150+ watts in addition to the CPU's -100watts. Integrated GPU's communicate via pci or pci-e anyways.

 

[Peter]

Socket? No. Discrete GPU on motherboard? Yes, and it has been done. From server boards that have basic, 2D-only VGAs on all the time, to midrange 3D-capable GPUs. Drawbacks are, it costs a ton of board space, and you're stuck with that GPU forever since it hogs the only GPU "slot" available on a typical chipset.

Quite a while ago for example, ECS have done a socket-A Athlon board that had a discrete SiS GPU and 64 MB of RAM onboard.

 

[Steve]

The PC-Chips M847LU (can't remember the ECS equivalent model name), the foundation of my first build. Now happily running three years later in a PC I built for my mother this past Christmas with 1GB of RAM, a Sempron 2800+ and a Thermatake Silent Tower:

http://www.techwarelabs.com/re...mages/m847lu_small.JPG

That's a SiS Xabre 200 GPU under that heatsink/fan combo. I was also able to use a long enough floppy cable to route it to the left and go underneath the board.

When I got it I had to go out and buy a new case, I figured it was a mATX board since it only had three slots

 

[WildHorse]

My Dell Latitude laptop has a motherboard with integrated graphics.

In the war industry single-board computers have been pretty common for a long time, say 10 years +, with the WHOLE computer on one board.