How about a Graphic board?

[R3C0N]

As we all know the evolution of graphic industry is moving ahead rapidly and it's difficult to keep up with them with all those upgrades every 1 year or so. But how about the industry give us a little bit of a breather by designing graphic boards.............. like motherboards where we install memory, CPU and other upgradable parts, we could have a graphic board where we can have upgradable memory and VPU............there won't be need of buying a whole card again..........just buy new VPU if that one is running out of gas for new games or maybe increase the memory if u need so.......................

What do you people think about the board?

 

[Action_Man]

BM will love this.

IMO worst idea ever.

 

[Action_Man]

Ok just for laughs this is how his post will go.

Link to some old anandtech article which says nvidia are working on it.

Ramble on about 4x4 and hypertransport providing enough bandwidth.

Some random numbers and whatnot that proves this.

Leaves out the fact that DDR2 and HTT can't provide enough bandwidth.

Leaves out the fact this would be awful for devs.

Rambles on about eDRAM.

Ramble on about how I'm wrong.

Best idea ever.

Everything I say has come true.

Will happen.

 

[R3C0N]

Hehe Dude I am not gonna do the things u say......... I was just asking opinions about people about that type of boards......... I am not like many other people who really fight with others to make their post look good 8) IMO getting a whole new card is cooler than getting a VPU

 

[sailer]

Thank you for my daily laugh. A video card advance is far more than a VPU. Think about finding an old carburated car. You decide to fuel inject it so you take off the carburator and put on a throttle body. Doesn't work. Why not? You need a new manifold, computers, exhaust analysers, etc. Same for the video card. Sure, you could put on a different VPU, but what about the rest of the card? It would still be old. Would putting a VPU from a 1900 xt onto a 9500 pro do that much good? Nope. The 9500 still would have all the old architecture, still would not be as fast as a 1900 xt, and couldn't run the new features.

Maybe someday some company will try it, but I don't see it anytime soon.

 

[Action_Man]

BM = Baronmatrix. Another user who thinks it the best idea ever.

 

[Heyyou27]

The idea is good in theory, problems we don't have memory fast enough to satisfy the GPUs, let alone the BUS speed.

 

[TheMaster]

It just wouldn't be practical... you would have to replace not only the GPU but also the memory everytime not to mention that the architecture of the bus would probably change aswell.

Too many headaches for everyone,
just buy a new graphics card and put it in the slot. Works Great! :idea:

 

[R3C0N]

doesn't it look cool

 

[angry_ducky]

It's an interesting idea...

 

[TheMaster]

Your idea is strangely reminiscant of 3dfx and why it went under... enthusiast only.

It might work in smaller scale, with nvidia backing it.
After all they took 3dfx's SLI and beat ATI over the head with it.

LoL now that i look at that board, it seems to have two video cards stuck in it.
I'm sure it won't be that much cheaper for us.

Now you'll have to buy the Master board then two video cards. :roll:

 

[Action_Man]

That wouldn't fit in my case. Not to mention they're 6600's, might as well get a single 6800.

 

[Action_Man]

It just wouldn't be practical... you would have to replace not only the GPU but also the memory everytime not to mention that the architecture of the bus would probably change aswell.

Too many headaches for everyone,
just buy a new graphics card and put it in the slot. Works Great! :idea:

Exactly.

 

[R3C0N]

U can put go7800gtx too......... to get more power....... remember it's an upgradable videocard

 

[Action_Man]

What about cooling for the GPU? Cooling for memory?

 

[TheMaster]

U can put go7800gtx too......... to get more power....... remember it's an upgradable videocard

But you're essentially BUYING 2 VIDEO CARDS.. + a 3rd one to run them.
Why not just stick two in an SLI mobo?

Sorry to ruin nvidia's brilliant idea but the PCIE slot on your mobo is upgradable aswell and a lot less constricted.

I'm sideing with action man on this one.
The graphics board belongs on the useless junk pile next to the ageia physics processor.

Worst Idea Ever! :trophy:

 

[BaronMatrix]

U can put go7800gtx too......... to get more power....... remember it's an upgradable videocard

But you're essentially BUYING 2 VIDEO CARDS.. + a 3rd one to run them.
Why not just stick two in an SLI mobo?

Sorry to ruin nvidia's brilliant idea but the PCIE slot on your mobo is upgradable aswell and a lot less constricted.

I'm sideing with action man on this one.
The graphics board belongs on the useless junk pile next to the ageia physics processor.

Worst Idea Ever! :trophy:


Weeeeee!

 

[shinigamiX]

I think that's an MSI concept. It was on Gizmodo a while back, almost a year. I think they abandoned due to the concensus being "Interesting but useless".

Now, if you guys want a really kick-ass concept, check these out:
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/hardware/emergingtech/0,39020357,39254004,00.htm
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/02/23/asus_concept_shelf_pc/

 

[mesarectifier]

That shelf PC idea sucks.

First, PC building and tinkering is fun! Stacking books on a shelf is not fun.

Also, connecting wirelessly between modules that close together is surely pointless. Why not have some sort of universal module connection bus and have them right next to each other. Still no cables, but much faster, more feasible in the near future and would cost a helluvalot less.

The wireless battery is a great idea, and would be brilliant if they get it working well enough - imagine your laptop charging itself from anywhere in your house, and Wi-Fi hotspots also having wireless charges for compatible machines. Now that's worth persuing.

 

[Cabletwitch]

Uhhhh, great. Thats essentially a way of making one PCI-E slot into two mini-PCI-E slots.

Thats all it is. A bridgeboard. No additional logic, nothing. Just extra power, thats is.

While in theory its a nice idea, theory is all it'll ever be. Why bother sticking laptop GPU's in a desktop? More expensive, less actual benefit. Besides, those Go units are shown sans HSF. Can we see a large metal attachment, if not for thw whole card, then one on each GPU?

Yeah, I'm going with AM on this one. Worst. Idea. Ever.

 

[Frank_M]

I'm hoping Torrenza will go just that way.
There were mentions of a socket for a gpu.

Now just imagine if you'd have a board with a cpu socket, and next to it it's ddr3 ram, and without the need of a northbridge, it could be connected via hypertransport or fsb directly to the gpu socket, which would have it's own ddr3 ram slots. (This is just my concept/thought, no idea how Torrenza will look like).
This would make upgrading gpu or adding more memory much easier and cheaper.
However, manufacturers would not be too happy about it - they'd prefer us spending more money...

 

[MrsD]

That has been on the table for a long time. Because of power consumption, cooling issues etc. the gpu socket would be a good idea.

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

[pic of MSI SLi MXM test platform]

doesn't it look cool

Actually that's not like what you're talking about, it's just smaller cards on a bigger card, kinda the opposite and worse than what you were suggesting. Not only do you still buy a card (a small and very expensive one) but you also have form factor and compatability issues.

The biggest barriers to replaceable VPUs is their size, power draw and heat; as for the replaceable memory, even if they did put GDDR4 on a stick, the pins required for 256bit memory would be incredibly tightly packed or increadibly large, either way complexe, expensive and more fragile. Each stage of the setup would add $$s to the equation, and once the marketing/accounting department got their minds wrapped around the realization that nothing has really changed, the people willing to pay $500 for a new card will also pay $500 for a new chip, then what you have now is still a $500 upgrade, only the money goes directly to ATi and nV. And for that reason alone, it's unlikely to happen, because if it were at all possible when the VPUs were simpler both ATi and nV would've done it for the sheer profitability, however, that it doesn't exist even as a working prototype shows that pretty much it's more difficult to implement than it's worth.

The reason the MSI solution is great is because it's for laptops. And if they bother to sell them as SLi expandable/compatible, instead of starting with both slots populated, you would have a good upgrade path in the laptop market to balance power consumption and performance as well as lengthen the life of your laptop. Of course you'd end up with the same choice as in desktop, two GFGO7800s in SLi or one GFGO7900GTX? I'd take the single slot solution going from a GF7800 to GF7900 instead of doubling up, especially in a laptop.