Why can't graphics boards become just chips?

[Edward78]

Instead of a APU/iGPU, why is it not just a whole chip & beside the chip socket is ram slots. Just a mirror of the CPU side only a GPU goes on that side.

[IRMacGuyver]

Probably because there are motherboards that already do that?  It's not as useful because it makes upgrades really hard as graphics cards change more than just the GPU with each generation.
 

 

[Arika]

because then the motherboard becomes needlessly complicated.

 

the motherboard would need to have

• More power
• more VRMs
• a new slot for VRAM (which would then need to be it's own thing as well)
• More space for another cooler 
• traces to handle the video output
• more video ports on the IO

[VeganJoy]

its expensive and inefficient to have a dedicated chip for a crappy little igpu, depending on how the interface was implemented you might need another dedicated chipset for it, it complicates the layout of the mobo with extra traces, and it'd need a little heatsink at least. not a great plan

[Cyracus]

Gpu manufacturers have socketable gpus. Reasons are few for it to be a general public thing and many many reasons to not to

[Cyracus]

4 minutes ago, CircleTech said:

-snip-

Yeah, sorry I said so poorly.
Reasons for: few
Reasons against: many (I considered typing a brief collection but figured many would cover any reasons why it's not a general consumer thing)

That enterprise stuff is cool and the old man tech is great, thanks for those tidbits.

[LOST TALE]

Biggest problem is the inferior cooling of pcie cards. 

 

It's backwards as the CPUs use less power than the GPUs but have evo 212s lol

 

Is it cheaper to standardize Gpu board components and not make a new one for every gpu or is it cheaper to let every gpu make whatever it needs?

[Edward78]

1 hour ago, CircleTech said:

wait what?

 

You mean a motherboard with a "GPU socket" like how today we have motherboards with CPU sockets? Then some GDDR memory slots next to them?

Yes.

[Damascus]

1 hour ago, Edward78 said:

Yes.

Any mobo with that feature would cost the consumer anywhere between $200-400, and only work for a miniscule number of GPUs

[Edward78]

10 hours ago, Damascus said:

Any mobo with that feature would cost the consumer anywhere between $200-400, and only work for a miniscule number of GPUs

I mean if ATI  (AMD) & Nvidia started making GPUs (ok they already do) just chips, they already make iGPUs & APUs. Why would this be that much more complex? They make boards that take 2 CPUs, not that huge of a leap. 

[Damascus]

37 minutes ago, Edward78 said:

I mean if ATI  (AMD) & Nvidia started making GPUs (ok they already do) just chips, they already make iGPUs & APUs. Why would this be that much more complex? They make boards that take 2 CPUs, not that huge of a leap. 

Because a huge part of the cost around a graphics card isn't the chip itself, but the surrounding power delivery and GDDR.  The memory for GPUs needs to be embedded due to the insane speeds involved.  That mean the base cost of any of these systems would be the same as buying a motherboard + 80% of whatever GPU that would have normally been socketed.

 

You may enjoy reading up on MXM gpus, basically the closest we have to this concept 

[Edward78]

Be cool if they were equal in performnce, be nice to have small GPUs like that for desktops.

[Damascus]

1 hour ago, Edward78 said:

Be cool if they were equal in performnce, be nice to have small GPUs like that for desktops.

STX motherboards can run mxm GPUs.  You can currently get a z390 + 1080 barebones for $1800 USD or so

[Edward78]

A graphics card is GPU & Ram right, maybe 1/2 other chips? https://www.techspot.com/article/1988-anatomy-graphics-card/ seems so,

[Ankerson]

HEAT, Complexity, power use etc...

 

 

[Edward78]

9 hours ago, Ankerson said:

HEAT, Complexity, power use etc...

Why would it be so complex, they have boards that take 2 cpus, just swap the 2nd socket for a gpu socket & the ram slots would take GDDRx. Or they could just make desktop cards MXM size, just slap a heatsink over the whole thing.  A Graphics card seems bigger than needed for a GPU & Ram. Why all the caps?