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Mobo with Integrated PPU?

O

osalcido

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Nov 10, 2005
Messages
1,481
would it be possible for Nvidia, Intel, or AMD to start integrating PPUs onto mobos?
 
Yeah. remember Intel, ATI, and Nvidia dont actually make the mother boards, they make the chipsets. However the only way a PPU is going to get on a mainboard is if the chipset supports it. Even asrock with its mighty dual socket, dual slot, dual memory type could not manage to integrate a PPU onto a board, without a chipset maker doing it on a referance board first.

Will/When will it be done? thats anyones guess. It's pretty clear physics is going to change the gaming world, im sure it will hit the PCI and PCIe slots first, but eventually I betcha there will be an Nforce 890 w/ integrated Physics. Theres deffinatly a demand for it. I was hoping some game producer/studio would hurry the process up, by releasing a game that required a PPU. No such luck. And consoles have to get on board, currently none of them are. When the next gen consoles arrive, we might see physics.
 
MrWizard6600 said:
eventually I betcha there will be an Nforce 890 w/ integrated Physics.
Click to expand...

I think that's definately the first really "cheap" physics solution that will be available. The real question is; when will system memory bandwidth be good enough for onboard physics/video to be viable? I imagine that just like onboard video, onboard physics would suffer a hit from having to use the main system bus.
 
Spewn said:
I think that's definately the first really "cheap" physics solution that will be available. The real question is; when will system memory bandwidth be good enough for onboard physics/video to be viable? I imagine that just like onboard video, onboard physics would suffer a hit from having to use the main system bus.
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It would still be better than nothing. And if they released an entire line of boards with integrated physics, it would help get studios moving on including ppu support in games, and it would give enough physics to at least off-load the physics in games right now to a dedicated processor, freeing up more cpu time.
 
Well, MSI is putting an X-Fi on their next high-end 680i, so maybe they'll come around and integrate physics as well someday.
 
Spewn said:
I think that's definately the first really "cheap" physics solution that will be available. The real question is; when will system memory bandwidth be good enough for onboard physics/video to be viable? I imagine that just like onboard video, onboard physics would suffer a hit from having to use the main system bus.
Click to expand...

The system bus is way outdated. Modern designs use something like a Hypertransport bus.
 
Why integrate it? You will replace a mobo 2-3x more than a physics processor, so why would you want to pay for it more than once?
 
Well they did it with Voodoo to.
with it's own onboard Vidram.
A way to get cheap a Voodoo capable Game rig.

PPU is a ageia thing will it be intergrated that would be up to Asus and the likes.
Chipset doesn't matter. the current one can be onboard by using a internal PCI2.2+ or PCI-E 1x link. And slap dedicated onboard 128MB ram with it.

I think it's the chicken egg thing. Mobo firms will do it if PPU breaks through. Just like 3DFX did.

It will keep a slot free that way.
 
adding sound or lan to a board isn't a big deal, but it would take too much to make it worthwhile to put a ppu on. you're talking extra heat that needs to be swept away. onboard solutions for graphics are always budget based and adding a ppu would take it one step farther from budget.
 
here's an idea, how about a PPU socket? That way when you upgrade your motherboard you can just drop the old PPU into the new motherboard.
 
it would seem like the desire to upgrade the ppu would come before the desire to upgrade the motherboard. it is an interesting idea to treat it like a cpu. motherboards still seem a bit cramped as it is, tho.
 
pRS317 said:
adding sound or lan to a board isn't a big deal, but it would take too much to make it worthwhile to put a ppu on. you're talking extra heat that needs to be swept away. onboard solutions for graphics are always budget based and adding a ppu would take it one step farther from budget.
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Sound on board is mostly Software solution, true.
But there are exeptions. Via Envy24 or something. a specific kind of nV southbridge with hardware accelerated sound. Just a soundblaster chip onboard. Wich are a bit rare.

Of course Ageia doesn't have a specifick onboard chip or intergrated one. And certenly not in the near future. So the only thing to put onboard is the real deal.

Heat no problem the could pick chips out with run on lower core voltage and also lower clock. But with a combine heatpipe solution witch takes PPU and South bridge and Mainboard voltage regulators it could be done.

this PPU don't draw so much power that it is not a big problem.

Th biggest problem would be it doesn't have break through in its own invented market of Physics accelerators.
 
Unknown-One said:
here's an idea, how about a PPU socket? That way when you upgrade your motherboard you can just drop the old PPU into the new motherboard.
Click to expand...

There just isn't enough room on motherboards these days for that sort of thing. Look at how many layout compromises have to be made on most high-end boards today, just to fit everything in.
 
Dual CPU board fit on normal ATX Layout.
So a CPU & PPU is posible.
A single chip chipset would help to.
And with E-ATX it totaly no problemo.
GuadFX ie Quadfather is posible to.
 
maleficarus said:
Bad idea. All that would do is jack on another $100 to an already exspensive motherboard.
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hahah, $100! lets see, jack it up at least $150 for the PPU and then another $100 on top of that for the convience factor...
 
I really don't see integrated PPU's happening. The PPU is by its nature a high-end gaming component. How many integrated graphics solutions are suitable for high-end gaming?

The only way we'll see this is if a reason arises to use physics in operating systems, and it will have to be some pretty heavy physics to justify transferring the load off of the CPU.
 
Yes it will happen in only a matter of time.
Why?
Simple, as onboard graphics evolve to use the chipsets supported by Havok, people will be able to use the PCIE slot for the graphics card and the onboard chipset for a PPU. Simple.
Some boards allowed people to use onboard graphics for one monitor and the AGP slot for the main gaming monitor.

I think the ATI and nVidia are well aware of the possibility of using onboard graphics in thier next gen chipsets.
Imagine a day when gamers drool over mATX boards with integrated graphics! LOL
Of course they will still use add in cards but use next gen onboard graphics for "effects" physics. Free.;)

Only a matter of time.
 
of course this will happen. It'll be something similar to the AMD 4x4. The 4x4 technology is based off of a technology that allows for add-on chips to be dropped into the second cpu socket. Especially with the merger of ATI we could see a drop in gpu or a drop in ppu. This would not only be beneficial to consumers but companies as well because they would only have to develop new chips, not whole new boards. The downside is that it gives manufacturers more control over the upgrade path of consuerms, think intel cpu sockets of the past. If they change the socket you have to buy all new hardware instead of just pulling out a card and transfering it over.
My guess is that in 2 years we'll have the choice of both ppu and gpu chips to be dropped into boards as well as what we have now, cards that fit into slots, most likely pci-e.

Don't take this as me pushing amd's 4x4, I just feel this is the way things should head, a similar setup, and amd is the one who already has it, so i cited it. My guess is this might be what amd focuses on to try and get a step back up to intel in consumer market.

As to the added heat issue, how would there be more heat from a drop in chip vs a card with the same chip when a card sticks out and effects air flow inside the case as well as adding heat.
 
SuperGee said:
Dual CPU board fit on normal ATX Layout.
So a CPU & PPU is posible.
A single chip chipset would help to.
And with E-ATX it totaly no problemo.
GuadFX ie Quadfather is posible to.
Click to expand...

Yes, E-ATX would help, but have you seen the price of the typical EATX board? I don't think having a Physics socket is a good move. I don't know about you, but for myself, and I suspect many people, don't need or want an EATX motherboard in most cases.

Ageia is already trying to break their own market into the mainstream, and trying to have it more proprietary won't help them. If nVidia and AMD/ATi were to come out with a separate PPU themselves, my guess is that they'd want to make it as widely available as possible for everybody. It'd be much simpler to use an existing platform, PCI or PCIe for example, and not worry about creating a new system to make use of it. Extra R&D for starters. If Ageia want's to make headway, keeping the PPU on an expansion card is going to be a smarter move. It's going to help them more to get PCIe parts out sooner than fiddle around creating a new socket for it.
 
There's definately a market for intergrated PPU but at the end of the day, the costs would make it a very very small market. Even the idea of providing another CPU style slot on the motherboard for something like a PPU would be a struggle because of all the extra heat overheads added by doing so, not to mention you'd still then need somewhere to put the RAM chips (though it could mean a PPU with up to 2GB ram!)


Still, that said, I'd be surprised if AMD don't eventually release a board with a few CPU style holes on it for various chips. Imagine simply being able to add up to 4 processors and choosing whether you wanted to fit general CPU's, GPU's or PPU's as you wanted and assign them as much RAM as you felt like. Heck, they can still make it possible to support older designs with a simple PCI-e board that lets you plug chips and RAM of your choosing into it. Cooling could be interesting though, imagine 4 Zalman 9700's inside a case! :)
 
For those who don't think there would be enough "memory bandwidth" for it on-board, the statement itself doesn't really apply. A PPU would use PCIe channels, and already boards have up to 40 PCIe channels available (PCIe 16x + 16x + 8x). This means it's possible to have an SLI/Crossfire board with a built-in PPU.

However, as others mentioned, there's no market for it right now and I would guess that we'll never, ever see it. Built-in video has a 'value' market for consumers who don't want to worry about buying a separate video card. For the gaming market, the focus is modular, and will most likely continue this way for a lone time.
 
I don't see this happening. Motherboard makers are already milking the profits so much, that I don't think we'd enjoy more of the $400 enthusiast boards.

I just don't see it happening, I can see for laptops and integrated devices, but for enthusiast level hardware I don't. Same reason why you don't see great sound cards or video cards in higher end boards either.
 
Ockie said:
...you don't see great sound cards or video cards in higher end boards either.
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Yes, seriously... I actually wish mobo manufacturers that sell high-end models would stop putting any sound on full sized ATX boards, let alone crappy sound. This is one thing most enthusiasts won't use.
 
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