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Old August 15th 08, 04:44 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware.amd.x86-64,alt.comp.periphs.videocards.nvidia,alt.comp.periphs.videocards.ati,comp.sys.intel,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.video
Robert Myers
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Default TheInquirer: 'Why AMD should merge with Nvidia'

On Aug 14, 5:19*pm, wrote:
On Aug 14, 1:19 pm, Robert Myers wrote:


AMD won't
need that much multi-threading of the software since, GPU's are
already highly parallelized by definition. Will it be easier for
compilers to create the level of multithreading that Intel requires,


To be a little bit tart about it, that's like looking at a horseless
carriage and saying, "But where do I put the saddle?" There are lots
of ways to hand work off to multiple processors aside from the clumsy
methods now in use. People have been talking about them for years.
Maybe now we'll see some action. In fact, I think it's inevitable.

or will they be more comfortable just throwing the data at the GPU and
letting the GPU sort it out for them? We'll have to see how that
plays.

Eugene Miya, who moderates comp.parallel, has advised ignoring the
graphics manufacturers because, according to him, they don't know what
they're doing. That could mean nothing more than that they have
thought that single-precision floating point would cut it, a mistake
that IBM has repaired slowly. Or he could be expressing an opinion
that's opposite to what you imply. He can't and won't say. In any
case, be careful of new wine in old wineskins.


Intel has finally caught up to all of the technology that AMD did
introduce about 5 years ago. But this CPU/GPU hybrid with a friendly
CPU frontend is a new direction that Intel can't take yet. Intel is
attempting to emulate a GPU with Larabee, but how good it's going to
be is questionable.


Intel is pursuing a suggestion that David Patterson made in the mid-
nineties. One of the many things that the platform could do (and
apparently will do) is to compete in the same spaces as GPU's, just as
GPU's are trying to compete in the same space as CPU's.

Robert.