Cpu to graphics??

[Perms_]

Ok this is a really dumb idea but I'm just gonna say it anyway. so we all know that alot of cpus have integrated graphics like the ryzen 3200g with Vega 8 which is a pretty good example as (especially in these times) if you don't have any way of getting a gpu it servers as an ok alternate. so i was thinking, what if we somehow put a socket on a pcb and put it in a pci express lane and somehow focus on the integrated graphics part of the cpu. now i wanna say that i am an idiot who doesn't understand fully the processes of a gpu or cpu work and also know that what I'm saying could be interpreted as "pffft why cant we have chips that like do graphics and stuff lol". but I'm talking about literally taking a cpu and putting it in a socket that goes in a pci express lane. I've included some beautiful artist renditions of what I'm visualizing.

[Perms_]

if you actually have braincells (unlike me) and know why this idea is dumb please reply I'd genuinely like to learn more about why this is dumb

[dean_5234]

It would be kind of dumb because it is cheaper to buy an outperforming GPU than to put a CPU with a good iGPU on a pcie card. 

[Perms_]

1 minute ago, davemc said:

It would be kind of dumb because it is cheaper to buy an outperforming GPU than to put a CPU with a good iGPU on a pcie card. 

thats true but i was thinking like oh you just brought a new cpu and your old one has integrated graphics so you might use it? idk this is dumb but i kinda like it lol 

[WhitetailAni]

Google "Slot 1 to Socket 370 adapter".

Not quite the same, but similar. Doesn't go in PCIe since PCIe wasn't out then - we had AGP, PCI, and ISA.

 

[Perms_]

2 minutes ago, FakeKGB said:

Google "Slot 1 to Socket 370 adapter".

Not quite the same, but similar. Doesn't go in PCIe since PCIe wasn't out then - we had AGP, PCI, and ISA.

 

oh thats super cool thanks i wonder if someone could modernize it 

[dilpickle]

It might be possible in theory. But you are talking about a lot of money spent to create this product just to be a band-aid to a temporary problem (gpu shortages)

[WhitetailAni]

1 minute ago, Perms_ said:

oh thats super cool thanks i wonder if someone could modernize it 

I'd like to make one thing clear.
It's not a "GPU slot to CPU slot" adapter.

It's just a PCB that takes a card edge connector and turns it into a socket.

Slot 1 was a CPU socket. So was Socket 370.

[dilpickle]

6 minutes ago, FakeKGB said:

Google "Slot 1 to Socket 370 adapter".

Not quite the same, but similar. Doesn't go in PCIe since PCIe wasn't out then - we had AGP, PCI, and ISA.

 

That's just a CPU daughtercard. Not really relevant to what OP was asking.

[BondiBlue]

9 minutes ago, FakeKGB said:

Google "Slot 1 to Socket 370 adapter".

Not quite the same, but similar. Doesn't go in PCIe since PCIe wasn't out then - we had AGP, PCI, and ISA.

 

Those just convert one CPU slot to a different socket. Not relevant to what OP is talking about. 

[Moonzy]

Hmm... I can see it being useful

But if you want integrated GPU, just buy a CPU with integrated GPU

 

AMD ryzen that doesn't have iGPU kinda sucks, just put one for basic display needs at least... Or else the ports on the boards are just for show

[svmlegacy]

I suspect the biggest issue would involve getting around the management engine to get the package to wake up. Surely the APU's would have to be built for this ability, as at least in AMD's design, the iGPU is connected to the CPU internally by a PCIe connection... that means the entire APU needs to be alive and functioning to enable this.

 

Intel's Clarkdale processors were an MCM that had the graphics separated from the x86 cores, I couldn't say how they work nowadays, though.

 

To do this with a current APU would involve a lot of support circutry on a daughter board. You'd essentially have a 2nd system made up on that board, with the exclusive purpose of pretending to be a graphics device, passing through to its APU's graphics... I suspect that would not end up well performance-wise.

[IkeaGnome]

There's for sure a spot for this. The two issues I see with this are architecture and RAM. APUs use a different architecture for graphics, so you wouldn't be able to have CUDA cores, tesnor cores or any other GPU specific architecture without them being built into the CPU. At that point we get into overly large APUs that just turn back into GPUs.

APUs also share RAM with the CPU instead of dedicated VRAM like dGPUs do. You'd need DDR4 slots on the PCB as well to feed the APU with information.

[WhitetailAni]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't this be impossible?

The way I understand it, PCIe is set up as client/host, similar to USB. CPUs are the host for PCIe lanes, and GPUs/NVMe drives/other expansion cards are the clients. While the data goes both ways, I don't believe there's a way to have a PCIe backplane where the lanes come from the backplane and go to the CPU, GPU, etc. I know Intel has their Compute Module things that slot into a PCIe slot, but the backplane isn't the source of the PCIe lanes.