How will purchasing a graphics card be in the future?

[woox]

If you kind of think about it, a graphics card is really a computer within your computer: Just like the "main" part of your computer has a motherboard, a CPU, ram and cooling, all graphics cards come with their own PCB, GPU, video ram and cooling. Yet the way we purchase our graphics cards is radically different when compared to the rest of the computer: the former's parts are bought as a whole package, while the latter's are purchased individually, allowing the builder to decide which motherboard, ram and CPU they would like to use together. So this is what I was thinking, what if one day this is also the way we purchase our graphics cards? As in we have to buy the processor, video ram and "motherboard" separately, and put them all together during the building process. I believe something like this would be very interesting, as it would allow for users to create their own graphics cards depending on their needs. For example, if someone wants to play video games at 1080p, but would also want to run games at maximum settings for the next couple years to come, why should they have to buy a high-end, 8 GB graphics card and pay the premium price for the extra vram, when they could simply buy the high-end GPU by itself and combine it with the much more reasonable and cheaper 2 GB of memory? It is also interesting how such a change would impact the total cost of buying a card, which I think would be cheaper due to the added customization options.

 

What are your thoughts?

[Peter Vaughan Truslow]

If you kind of think about it, a graphics card is really a computer within your computer: Just like the "main" part of your computer has a motherboard, a CPU, ram and cooling, all graphics cards come with their own PCB, GPU, video ram and cooling. Yet the way we purchase our graphics cards is radically different when compared to the rest of the computer: the former's parts are bought as a whole package, while the latter's are purchased individually, allowing the builder to decide which motherboard, ram and CPU they would like to use together. So this is what I was thinking, what if one day this is also the way we purchase our graphics cards? As in we have to buy the processor, video ram and "motherboard" separately, and put them all together during the building process. I believe something like this would be very interesting, as it would allow for users to create their own graphics cards depending on their needs. For example, if someone wants to play video games at 1080p, but would also want to run games at maximum settings for the next couple years to come, why should they have to buy a high-end, 8 GB graphics card and pay the premium price for the extra vram, when they could simply buy the high-end GPU by itself and combine it with the much more reasonable and cheaper 2 GB of memory? It is also interesting how such a change would impact the total cost of buying a card, which I think would be cheaper due to the added customization options.

 

What are your thoughts?

I think that graphics cards are going to remain as one add in board, as everything has to be tightly controlled for it to work together properly.

[I need a better name]

that would be kewl

[Misanthrope]

I thought about this before and I always wanted a motherboard with a GPU socket and vram dimms. Think about it cooling would be less of an issue with modern AIOs and such, separate ram of course and you could get much better compact or think clients and systems.

 

Even if it's a separate GPU motherboard that just links to the main mobo, I'd gladly do it.

[Sam Z Man]

If you want to find out how stuff will work in the future, start by rubbing the dust off of old lamps, vases, and bottle's, and hope you get lucky.

[RollinLower]

i think they would keep it like this for as long as possible, if only because they make the most money out of it this way.

tough as mentioned before, all components of a graphics card need to be tightly controlled to work properly, so it would be really hard to make different components that'll work together properly.

 

it would be amazing to 'build' my own graphics card tough!

[Mao_Zedong]

I highly doubt this will happen. CPUs don't have user replaceable cache, and I thing GPUs will also keep like this.

[Samfisher]

If you kind of think about it, a graphics card is really a computer within your computer: Just like the "main" part of your computer has a motherboard, a CPU, ram and cooling, all graphics cards come with their own PCB, GPU, video ram and cooling. Yet the way we purchase our graphics cards is radically different when compared to the rest of the computer: the former's parts are bought as a whole package, while the latter's are purchased individually, allowing the builder to decide which motherboard, ram and CPU they would like to use together. So this is what I was thinking, what if one day this is also the way we purchase our graphics cards? As in we have to buy the processor, video ram and "motherboard" separately, and put them all together during the building process. I believe something like this would be very interesting, as it would allow for users to create their own graphics cards depending on their needs. For example, if someone wants to play video games at 1080p, but would also want to run games at maximum settings for the next couple years to come, why should they have to buy a high-end, 8 GB graphics card and pay the premium price for the extra vram, when they could simply buy the high-end GPU by itself and combine it with the much more reasonable and cheaper 2 GB of memory? It is also interesting how such a change would impact the total cost of buying a card, which I think would be cheaper due to the added customization options.

 

What are your thoughts?

 

VRAM does not equate performance.

[DrunkPenguinz]

If you kind of think about it, a graphics card is really a computer within your computer: Just like the "main" part of your computer has a motherboard, a CPU, ram and cooling, all graphics cards come with their own PCB, GPU, video ram and cooling. Yet the way we purchase our graphics cards is radically different when compared to the rest of the computer: the former's parts are bought as a whole package, while the latter's are purchased individually, allowing the builder to decide which motherboard, ram and CPU they would like to use together. So this is what I was thinking, what if one day this is also the way we purchase our graphics cards? As in we have to buy the processor, video ram and "motherboard" separately, and put them all together during the building process. I believe something like this would be very interesting, as it would allow for users to create their own graphics cards depending on their needs. For example, if someone wants to play video games at 1080p, but would also want to run games at maximum settings for the next couple years to come, why should they have to buy a high-end, 8 GB graphics card and pay the premium price for the extra vram, when they could simply buy the high-end GPU by itself and combine it with the much more reasonable and cheaper 2 GB of memory? It is also interesting how such a change would impact the total cost of buying a card, which I think would be cheaper due to the added customization options.

 

What are your thoughts?

Cool, yes. Reasonable, not really. The whole point of them not have a "build-a-gpu" store is probably for profit. When you buy a Titan X, you're Obligated to spend that extra money for 12GB. If you could put it down to something more reasonable, say, 4 GB of VRAM, that would make it cheaper, ergo Nvidia wouldn't be milking everyone's pockets dry.

[woox]

VRAM does not equate performance.

I never said that, I only meant that if you only plan to game at 1080p, 2 GB is going to be enough.

[woox]

Cool, yes. Reasonable, not really. The whole point of them not have a "build-a-gpu" store is probably for profit. When you buy a Titan X, you're Obligated to spend that extra money for 12GB. If you could put it down to something more reasonable, say, 4 GB of VRAM, that would make it cheaper, ergo Nvidia wouldn't be milking everyone's pockets dry.

Yup, you summed it up pretty well.

[Samfisher]

I never said that, I only meant that if you only plan to game at 1080p, 2 GB is going to be enough.

 

Well I guess, there is a problem comparing GPUs to CPUs + motherboards.  To use a CPU, you have to use a compatible motherboard.  Buy an Intel CPU, and you need a motherboard with an Intel-made chipset that guarantees the performance and usage of said features.  You can't cross use motherboards and CPUs.  Same for GPU tech.  Even more so for GPU tech cos with HBM soon becoming standard fare, the VRAM and GPU will be integrated into 1 package.  You couldn't separate them even if you want to.

 

In current times though, GPUs are different in that they are still pretty darn small compared to the rest of the PC.  Good luck trying to replace RAM chips and GPU cores on a tiny piece of PCB (considering the vast majority of space is for the cooler).

[Calavera]

At one point it'll all be integrated I think.

PC's are able to be smaller for what they produce in calculations, you can see that the onboard-graphic drivers are more than enough for a lot of consumers, I think at one point they'll not need to be bought externally anymore, just like soundcards.