Why are CPU's so small?

[Guest Console Peasant]

Why not make them bigger for full towers? Like I don't understand how the phsyicallity works but why is it such a small chip? A graphics card is much larger.. .why not cpu? Why not make RAM bigger? Wouldnt it help?

[xnoobftw]

A GPU core is actually smaller you know.....

[connorpiper]

The actual chip on the GPU is smaller than a CPU. When a transistor is 22 or 14 atoms across, it is going to be much smaller. 

And what is the point of a bigger CPU?

[ImBleu]

The only reason a GPU is bigger is due to it's physical die size and that its essentially a motherboard with a massive cooler on it.

[yNeolh]

I think is just because CPU usually can make more data than the rest of the system can handle, so... If they had more computational power, you just wouldnt notice... also, the paths between chips inside the CPU needs to be as small as posible to process the information as fast as they can, so... yeah, the small factor just increase the performance.

[Sam Z Man]

Because it would make things worse not better there is a reason why they went from 32nm to 22nm and now to 14nm.

[Suffokation]

Size isn't all that matters.

[Gofspar]

For the people saying that the die on a GPU is smaller than a CPU die is wrong, I've delidded my i7 and it's about the same. One is rectangular and one is a square.

[Sam Z Man]

The actual chip on the GPU is smaller than a CPU. When a transistor is 22 or 14 atoms across, it is going to be much smaller.

And what is the point of a bigger CPU?

Bro they are not measured in atoms, there is a difference between a nano meter and a atom.

You can fit 5 silicon atoms in a nano meter.

[PROTOMAN247]

I think it's all a matter of money. I don't know if this is true or not. So don't quote me on this. But we are essentially get souped up laptop/mobile chips. That's why it's small. I think it would be more expensive to manufacture chips independently of laptops from desktops. I might be totally wrong so yea... I know nothing.

[Prysin]

Because todays size of CPU are infinately more practical then having to build a computer the size of a shopping mall. i mean, if you want to build a computer with a 1950s shopping mall sized CPU then great go for it. But i hope you're not planning to go to lan parties with that setup

[minibois]

Why not make them bigger for full towers? Like I don't understand how the phsyicallity works but why is it such a small chip? A graphics card is much larger.. .why not cpu? Why not make RAM bigger? Wouldnt it help?

A Graphics chip is as small (if not smaller) than a CPU.

It's just the cooler and all the memory on it that makes it bigger.

 

You're comparing a GPU vs. CPU.

You should be comparing a GPU with a CPU, RAM and a CPU cooler.

Those sizes are more similar.

 

(By the way, you have some bigger CPU's. I believe Xeons are bigger)

 

[SSL]

Dies are manufactured from silicon wafers that DO have constrianed size. Making dies larger is more expensive because more material is required to make a certain number of chips.

 

Increasing die size further reduces yield because there is more opportunity for something in the die to go wrong, requiring that it be binned lower. This further drives up price.

 

Finally, die size HAS increased - but it is far more economical and beneifical to shrink the transitors.

[Sam Z Man]

I think it's all a matter of money. I don't know if this is true or not. So don't quote me on this. But we are essentially get souped up laptop/mobile chips. That's why it's small. I think it would be more expensive to manufacture chips independently of laptops from desktops. I might be totally wrong so yea... I know nothing.

It's because the longer a electrical circuit is the longer it takes to send a signal across. Also the bigger a transistor is the more heat it produces while doing the exact same job.

You get more performance from having it be smaller.

[PROTOMAN247]

It's because the longer a electrical circuit is the longer it takes to send a signal across. Also the bigger a transistor is the more heat it produces while doing the exact same job.

You get more performance from having it be smaller.

I said don't quote me god dammit

[MegaDave91]

I don't think anyone who buys a Xeon E7 4850 is complaining of it's relatively small size.

[Blebekblebek]

you still want a computer size like a fridge? and require a millions of jigawatts?

[Deletive]

A CPU is rather useless without it's motherboard... 

[paprikman]

Go back into 1980-s and u'll be satisfied with quite big pc-s.

[Sneach2]

why should they be big? if we can make them smaller then why not. it doesn't alter performance, well i guess the smaller the chip the faster since the data has got less ground to cover than if the chip was bigger. so it does alter performance (sorry i lied...  ) - for the better.

[W-L]

Why not make them bigger for full towers? Like I don't understand how the phsyicallity works but why is it such a small chip? A graphics card is much larger.. .why not cpu? Why not make RAM bigger? Wouldnt it help?

 

Mainly material costs from my understanding at least in terms of die size, cause to make this it costs millions if not billions of dollars of equipment and R&D:

 

 

That's why wafers are also round if you were wondering.

[ZeferiniX]

It used to be big if you'd look up its history but then shrinking while improving it has more advantages from performance to cooling to physical size and so on.

[Oskar94a]

the smaller it is, the shorter distance the electrons have to travel - it becomes faster. thats why they have become smaller and smaller.

[msvelev]

1)Smaller chips need less material to produce = they're less expensive = good.

2)Smaller chips = smaller distance electricity has to travel = less heat = good.

Why would you want bigger chips?

[sgloux3470]

They often are.

 

2011-v3 is quite a bit larger than Haswell.

Those goofy 38 core processors are also a little bit bigger than that socket.

 

Anyway the focus for consumer CPU's isn't adding more cores or even offering performance improvements.  It's offering nearly identical performance (although still better) while using much less power to do it.

 

It's also about offering a decent iGPU capable of doing things most non-gamers use computers for.

 

Anyway, the cores keep getting smaller and the iGPU keeps getting bigger because Intel is not going to change their i3/i5/i7 lineup until they have to.