AirRaid wrote:
http://www.beyond3d.com/content/articles/31


Intel presentation reveals the future of the CPU-GPU war

Published on 11th Apr 2007, written by TeamB3D for Consumer Graphics -
Last updated: 11th Apr 2007

Introduction

Back in February we reported that Intel's Douglas Carmean, new Chief
Architect of their Visual Computing Group (VCG) in charge of GPU
development at Intel, had been touring universities giving a
presentation called "Future CPU Architectures -- The Shift from
Traditional Models". Since then he's added a few more major
university stops, and now the feared B3D ninjas have caught up with
him. Our shadow warriors have scored a copy of Carmean's presentation,
and we've selected the juicy bits for your enjoyment and edification
regarding the showdown that Intel sees as already underway between CPU
and GPU makers.

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After a fairly standard review of CPU development over the last thirty
years, a serpent is detected in the CPU boys' garden of eden,
threatening their supremacy. "CPU profit margins are decreasing. GPU
margins are increasing." As the old saying goes, "Follow the money!"
and you'll rarely be lead astray. But where has this serpent come
from?


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Ah ha, NVIDIA and ATI are revealed as the wannabe usurpers, and the
GPU programability trends that began with 2001's NV20 DX8 capabilities
have now grown to be enough of a threat to gain even the attention of
mighty Intel. Given that Carmean first began giving the original form
of this presentation in 2005, one might wonder how large a part the
rationale displayed here played in AMD's acquistion of ATI which was
first proposed in December of that year.


Yeah, Intel is in hurry up mode now, they are obviously worried about
the possibility of the CPU-GPU combo or even GPGPU, usurping them. But
their solution to it seems to be to use highly-multi-core in-order CPUs
to fight off the GPUs. It doesn't really look like they're making a GPU,
rather they are using super-simplified CPUs.

Yousuf Khan

--
There is no failure, only delayed success