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Uraniun235 wrote:What's that card next to the vid card?

Its my X-Fi. That slot has the least amount of resource sharing on it, which is why its there.

Ahh, P180 + Ninja awesomeness.

Ninja, yes. P180, no. It's a Silverstone TJ-07.

Arrow wrote:Ninja, yes. P180, no. It's a Silverstone TJ-07.

Heh, I didn't look too carefully and missed the twin outflow fans. I saw the bottom-mount PSU and automatically thought P180.

OMFG XBOX HUEG SINK

How long before computers are designed entirely around the GPU? The graphics card is often the most expensive component in the whole machine anyway.

Darth Wong wrote:How long before computers are designed entirely around the GPU? The graphics card is often the most expensive component in the whole machine anyway.

Torrenza maybe? We're looking at moving alot of the floating point operations to the GPU with GPGPU operations and with AMD buying ATI and being public about doing intergrated designs, it's something to think about.

That's something I've been thinking about recently, with quad core processors coming out, very few people will actually need all four cores, why not make one or two of them into GPU cores instead? Is that even possible?

ThatGuyFromThatPlace wrote:That's something I've been thinking about recently, with quad core processors coming out, very few people will actually need all four cores, why not make one or two of them into GPU cores instead? Is that even possible?

Yes and it's basicly the CELL design. And the far off Intel designs.

Or the much less pie-in-the-sky AMDATI plans.

Darth Wong wrote:How long before computers are designed entirely around the GPU? The graphics card is often the most expensive component in the whole machine anyway.

Well, for most consumers it looks like the highly-complex, fast GPU is becoming less relevant (see: Intel GMA, which is "good enough" for most people). I could see the Wheel of Reincarnation move along once again and CPUs start doing the work low-end GPUs once did.

ThatGuyFromThatPlace wrote:That's something I've been thinking about recently, with quad core processors coming out, very few people will actually need all four cores, why not make one or two of them into GPU cores instead? Is that even possible?

You could, but that'd be one ridiculously huge and expensive processor. Most GPU cores are already larger than CPUs.

The FUSION program is aimed at low cost GPU's for light laptops, cell phones, PDA's, etc. A seperate graphics card will always be faster than some CPU/GPU hybrid, and it will be a long time before we stop needing as much power as we can feasibly get. Not until we can display graphics that are indistinguishable from looking out a window on smaller and smaller hardware, and as good as today's graphics are, they aren't even within ICBM range of that.

I do agree, however, that highly multithreaded, non-graphics applications like physics will increasingly be run on the GPU.

phongn wrote:

Darth Wong wrote:How long before computers are designed entirely around the GPU? The graphics card is often the most expensive component in the whole machine anyway.

Well, for most consumers it looks like the highly-complex, fast GPU is becoming less relevant (see: Intel GMA, which is "good enough" for most people). I could see the Wheel of Reincarnation move along once again and CPUs start doing the work low-end GPUs once did.

That's where I see these CPU/GPU's coming in, the "good enough" market. In fact, I see PC's basically splitting into two completely different machines. One low cost and good enough for word processing and checking e-mail, the other high performance which is an extension of PC's today.

Arthur_Tuxedo wrote:

phongn wrote:

Darth Wong wrote:How long before computers are designed entirely around the GPU? The graphics card is often the most expensive component in the whole machine anyway.

Well, for most consumers it looks like the highly-complex, fast GPU is becoming less relevant (see: Intel GMA, which is "good enough" for most people). I could see the Wheel of Reincarnation move along once again and CPUs start doing the work low-end GPUs once did.

That's where I see these CPU/GPU's coming in, the "good enough" market. In fact, I see PC's basically splitting into two completely different machines. One low cost and good enough for word processing and checking e-mail, the other high performance which is an extension of PC's today.

The low cost resembling the iMacs?

Yes, that would be my prediction. With a strong trend toward smaller and cheaper laptops replacing desktops for personal use and desktops that are contained in the "monitor" like an iMac.

Ace Pace wrote:The low cost resembling the iMacs?

Not architecturally speaking.

phongn wrote:

Ace Pace wrote:The low cost resembling the iMacs?

Not architecturally speaking.

I was thinking more 'Everything intergrated into monitor' or otherwise an SFF box. Theres really no reason for giant tower cases anymore outside of us hardware geeks.

Going back a page, I forgot to mention that the last Oblivion test run and all the screenshots also had mutlisampling transparency AA enabled as well. And BF2 and BF2142 stay well above 50 FPS (and usually maxed at 100 FPS) with pretty much everything cranked.

On the above discussion, I have to agree that PCs will divide into "markets", the general purpose low end machine and the geek god box. But ten years out, I think PC game will succumb to consoles (about two more console generations).

Arrow wrote:On the above discussion, I have to agree that PCs will divide into "markets", the general purpose low end machine and the geek god box. But ten years out, I think PC game will succumb to consoles (about two more console generations).

Hasn't that pretty much already happened for FPS, action, and sports/driving games? I know the only games I or my kids play on the PC are strategy or sim/RPG games. Mind you, the PC does have much better controls for FPS games but I got bored of the whole FPS genre a long time ago.

Darth Wong wrote: Hasn't that pretty much already happened for FPS, action, and sports/driving games? I know the only games I or my kids play on the PC are strategy or sim/RPG games. Mind you, the PC does have much better controls for FPS games but I got bored of the whole FPS genre a long time ago.

For fighting/racing/platformers/linear RPGs, yes. FPS are slowly migrating in greater numbers but the vast majority of shooters are still in the PC market.

Arrow wrote:On the above discussion, I have to agree that PCs will divide into "markets", the general purpose low end machine and the geek god box. But ten years out, I think PC game will succumb to consoles (about two more console generations).

They tried a push in this direction with the BTX form factor, I think.

As for consoles, I have my doubts; RTS and FPS games, the big sellers of PC gaming (well, besides shovelware like The Sims or Deer Hunter) are never quite the same without a mouse and keyboard, and voice chat isn't always preferable. Plus, people have been foretelling the imminent doom of PC gaming for many years now, and it has not yet come to pass.

Uraniun235 wrote:

Arrow wrote:On the above discussion, I have to agree that PCs will divide into "markets", the general purpose low end machine and the geek god box. But ten years out, I think PC game will succumb to consoles (about two more console generations).

They tried a push in this direction with the BTX form factor, I think.

Not really. BTX was a format that could easily have replaced ATX, it had the same capability as ATX of housing full sized boards.

What I meant by PCs succumbing to consoles wasn't that PC games would lose their popularity (and granted, a lot of genres are far more popular on consoles than PCs), but rather there's going to be a point where you need very, very expensive hard to get just the smallest gain out a PC, whether be graphics, physics, AI, or whatever; diminishing returns, basically. There will be a point where its "good enough", and the generation after console hardware will have all those capabilities. Actually, succumb isn't the right word; merge is probably closer to what I'm getting out. Ten years out might not be enough time, but I think what I described will happen sooner or later.