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#1
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how will APUs affect upgrading a build?
I haven't paid attention to advances in CPUs and motherboards for a few
years. I assembled my own pc and use it for basic apps, including one game that requires shader 3 support. I was trying to figure out how outdated my pc is compared to what's out there now and what I might consider upgrading. I'm toying with upgrading to a 64-bit OS and expanding my memory. My mobo can handle up to 16 Gb of memory. So I started out at Tom's Hardware. If I read it right, CPUs are being replaced by APUs (combined CPU and GPU functions) and both Intel and AMD will stop manufacturing CPUs and only be offering APUs by the end of 2013. Has anyone started discussing to what extent the new technology can be used in existing gear or will it be a complete break with the past requiring new mobos, processing unit, memory and graphic cards (Tom's Hardware noted that at least some of the APUs would require a graphics card for say gaming to be playable). The best I figured it was that the benefit of the APU was cooler temperatures, maybe less circuitry on the mobo. John |
#2
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how will APUs affect upgrading a build?
Yes wrote:
I haven't paid attention to advances in CPUs and motherboards for a few years. I assembled my own pc and use it for basic apps, including one game that requires shader 3 support. I was trying to figure out how outdated my pc is compared to what's out there now and what I might consider upgrading. I'm toying with upgrading to a 64-bit OS and expanding my memory. My mobo can handle up to 16 Gb of memory. So I started out at Tom's Hardware. If I read it right, CPUs are being replaced by APUs (combined CPU and GPU functions) and both Intel and AMD will stop manufacturing CPUs and only be offering APUs by the end of 2013. Has anyone started discussing to what extent the new technology can be used in existing gear or will it be a complete break with the past requiring new mobos, processing unit, memory and graphic cards (Tom's Hardware noted that at least some of the APUs would require a graphics card for say gaming to be playable). The best I figured it was that the benefit of the APU was cooler temperatures, maybe less circuitry on the mobo. John Both Intel and AMD are already shipping processor chips with built-in graphics. The graphics are suitable, for lightweight gaming. If you're playing 3D games, there'll continue to be a market for video cards. It's just the $50 video card market that will suffer at the hands of the built-in GPU idea. Another concept besides the APU, is the SOC. That's system on a chip. The Raspberry PI computer ($25), uses a SOC. SOCs are used on the ARM side of computing, for mobile devices. But if Intel wanted, Intel could do a SOC. The problem with the idea of putting more and more on one chip, is whether the yield at the fab will be high enough. This is why some of the APUs in the past, consisted of an MCM with two silicon die inside. The CPU and GPU were separate silicon. The same concept was used to build quad core CPUs at one time - two dual core CPUs were placed inside an MCM, making a quad core (with lots of cache snoop traffic on the bus). This gives options that have a better yield at the fab facility. MCM technology can hold a lot of silicon dies, but in the real world, the large ones hold four silicon dies, and the small ones hold two silicon dies. And that flexibility, allows them to test each component part separately, before assembling them inside the final package. On the outside, it looks like a single chip. So while Intel could do a SOC, combining CPU, GPU, Northbridge, Southbridge, it might have a large number of pins on it to build a desktop computer, and that would be unwieldy. The processor with LGA2011 socket, was already a stretch, in terms of what was practical. Adding more pins just isn't a wise idea, as the forces involved inside the socket have to be so large. Soldering the SOC to the motherboard, solves that problem, and your choice in the matter in the future, will be strictly limited. No socket any more. Don't like the processor, sell the whole motherboard+CPU to someone else on Ebay. So eventually, the motherboard socket will disappear, and the motherboard will come with the CPU soldered to it. That might be the only big chip evident on it. I expect one side effect, is we'll take a screwing on price. The combined assembly, will allow a bit of gouging. Now, if they shrink the motherboards, and decide to remove the ability to plug in add-in cards, maybe a future computer will have only one PCI Express x16 slot, and that's where your "gamer video card" will go. ("See - the evil already lives, in the lab") ("No consumer choice evident") http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/...dc3217iye.html So those are the trends. What will actually happen, is a function of what the majority of consumers care about. The fact that mobile (ARM) devices have such a ready supply of customers, tells you customers really don't care about how their devices are constructed. Only you and I care. And we don't matter enough, for anyone to cater to us. We'll get, whatever they give us. This may be your future gamer PC. Only room for one plug-in card. The orange slot, is if you need a more powerful video card. Two sticks of RAM at 8GB a piece, will allow the construction of a 16GB computer. http://images17.newegg.com/is/image/newegg/13-500-064-Z01?$S640W$ Paul |
#3
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how will APUs affect upgrading a build?
On Feb 2, 2:16 pm, "Yes" wrote:
I haven't paid attention to advances in CPUs and motherboards for a few years. I assembled my own pc and use it for basic apps, including one game that requires shader 3 support. I was trying to figure out how outdated my pc is compared to what's out there now and what I might consider upgrading. I'm toying with upgrading to a 64-bit OS and expanding my memory. My mobo can handle up to 16 Gb of memory. So I started out at Tom's Hardware. If I read it right, CPUs are being replaced by APUs (combined CPU and GPU functions) and both Intel and AMD will stop manufacturing CPUs and only be offering APUs by the end of 2013. Has anyone started discussing to what extent the new technology can be used in existing gear or will it be a complete break with the past requiring new mobos, processing unit, memory and graphic cards (Tom's Hardware noted that at least some of the APUs would require a graphics card for say gaming to be playable). The best I figured it was that the benefit of the APU was cooler temperatures, maybe less circuitry on the mobo. John Who cares. Existing gear is software & a lot of storage support to hold it for hook up to standard peripheral ports, among keyboard/ monitor-mouse. USB connections killed any old ISA/PCI market for dedicated slotted cards. Gaming boxes should continue, even if the field has dropped out somewhat fashion wise from highs 5 or so years ago, when the BestBuy's PC sales motto was games 'make or break 'em'. I still run single cores, rather haven't yet dropped in a CPU, Intel's first dually, for upgrading this P4 (other computer is a 'nice' AMD dually, nice being really fast from my perspective, anyway). Guess I missed out on the drumroll for the whole beat Core 8 Generation X. Like net-werking, never got a fever for redhot broadcast connections across the living room to another computer I use for video or music. What's left. I don't need Tom's Hardware to run software as long as it's on 80xxx processor base. Same goes for graphics, perfunctory to low- to mid-level quality encodes. Software has all but stopped playing try to catchup with hardware. The angles are different with low-resource offerings -- distributive software is here on the clouds, along with fashion wris****ch computers sporting realtime FaceBook personality updates, steaming video subscriptions, and Google's GPS, so people know where they're related at. (A professor recently submitted an article the media picked up: One third of students entering high education facilities, due to virtual online estimations of themselves, fall short of any tangible worth that equates to reality.) Digging into how software runs over microprocessors in an expansive sense of platform build control is, and probably always was, more the purvey of a technician, than actual effort and study given past less need for the bull**** now for residuals from earlier epoch when there wasn't much choice, other than to learn it right, in order to grasp an inkling of all a computer is capable. People are simply more than willing enough now to let the technicians handle what they'll get in a stricter format and capacity to compute. Just a sure as are those bottom-dollars, for business, as always, to promote most wondrously a sheer limitlessness of what they have proffer, decreeing effortlessly **** from shineola, from what virtuality will not be by explicit catchphrases it was in yesteryears. A contemporaneously human result to sit on one's ass, has been since WWI or II, and to expect that, rightly demand of science and its technocratic extension of capitalism. Whining about obfuscation is officially over. Smart phones are here. You are to live long to prosper, citizen -- & above all proudly to consume -- as the world so will continue along on its spin into a bigger/better, new and improved WWW3. God has designed it so. |
#4
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how will APUs affect upgrading a build?
Flasherly wrote:
On Feb 2, 2:16 pm, "Yes" wrote: Who cares. --snipped-- I care. |
#5
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how will APUs affect upgrading a build?
Paul wrote:
Both Intel and AMD are already shipping processor chips with built-in graphics. The graphics are suitable, for lightweight gaming. -- snipped -- So eventually, the motherboard socket will disappear, and the motherboard will come with the CPU soldered to it. That might be the only big chip evident on it. I expect one side effect, is we'll take a screwing on price. The combined assembly, will allow a bit of gouging. -- snipped -- So those are the trends. What will actually happen, is a function of what the majority of consumers care about. The fact that mobile (ARM) devices have such a ready supply of customers, tells you customers really don't care about how their devices are constructed. Only you and I care. And we don't matter enough, for anyone to cater to us. We'll get, whatever they give us. This may be your future gamer PC. Only room for one plug-in card. The orange slot, is if you need a more powerful video card. Two sticks of RAM at 8GB a piece, will allow the construction of a 16GB computer. http://images17.newegg.com/is/image/newegg/13-500-064-Z01?$S640W$ Paul Sounds bleak. What about those of us who want to use their pc not so much for gaming but to play around with software that needs both high end processing power and lots of memory? |
#6
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how will APUs affect upgrading a build?
Yes wrote:
Paul wrote: Both Intel and AMD are already shipping processor chips with built-in graphics. The graphics are suitable, for lightweight gaming. -- snipped -- So eventually, the motherboard socket will disappear, and the motherboard will come with the CPU soldered to it. That might be the only big chip evident on it. I expect one side effect, is we'll take a screwing on price. The combined assembly, will allow a bit of gouging. -- snipped -- So those are the trends. What will actually happen, is a function of what the majority of consumers care about. The fact that mobile (ARM) devices have such a ready supply of customers, tells you customers really don't care about how their devices are constructed. Only you and I care. And we don't matter enough, for anyone to cater to us. We'll get, whatever they give us. This may be your future gamer PC. Only room for one plug-in card. The orange slot, is if you need a more powerful video card. Two sticks of RAM at 8GB a piece, will allow the construction of a 16GB computer. http://images17.newegg.com/is/image/newegg/13-500-064-Z01?$S640W$ Paul Sounds bleak. What about those of us who want to use their pc not so much for gaming but to play around with software that needs both high end processing power and lots of memory? What I'd describing is where the mainstream might head. You can always use a server motherboard :-) Paul |
#7
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how will APUs affect upgrading a build?
Paul wrote:
Yes wrote: Paul wrote: Both Intel and AMD are already shipping processor chips with built-in graphics. The graphics are suitable, for lightweight gaming. -- snipped -- So eventually, the motherboard socket will disappear, and the motherboard will come with the CPU soldered to it. That might be the only big chip evident on it. I expect one side effect, is we'll take a screwing on price. The combined assembly, will allow a bit of gouging. -- snipped -- So those are the trends. What will actually happen, is a function of what the majority of consumers care about. The fact that mobile (ARM) devices have such a ready supply of customers, tells you customers really don't care about how their devices are constructed. Only you and I care. And we don't matter enough, for anyone to cater to us. We'll get, whatever they give us. This may be your future gamer PC. Only room for one plug-in card. The orange slot, is if you need a more powerful video card. Two sticks of RAM at 8GB a piece, will allow the construction of a 16GB computer. http://images17.newegg.com/is/image/newegg/13-500-064-Z01?$S640W$ Paul Sounds bleak. What about those of us who want to use their pc not so much for gaming but to play around with software that needs both high end processing power and lots of memory? What I'd describing is where the mainstream might head. You can always use a server motherboard :-) Paul I've done that before :-) I'll just take it one day at a time then. |
#8
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how will APUs affect upgrading a build?
On 02/02/2013 2:16 PM, Yes wrote:
I haven't paid attention to advances in CPUs and motherboards for a few years. I assembled my own pc and use it for basic apps, including one game that requires shader 3 support. I was trying to figure out how outdated my pc is compared to what's out there now and what I might consider upgrading. I'm toying with upgrading to a 64-bit OS and expanding my memory. My mobo can handle up to 16 Gb of memory. What you neglected to mention anywhere in your post is what your current hardware is, is it Intel or AMD? If your current mobo handles upto 16GB of RAM, then it's relatively recent, I'd say maybe no more than 3 years old. So it should be able to handle a 64-bit OS with no change to the hardware whatsoever. So I started out at Tom's Hardware. If I read it right, CPUs are being replaced by APUs (combined CPU and GPU functions) and both Intel and AMD will stop manufacturing CPUs and only be offering APUs by the end of 2013. I'm not sure if they'll stop offering plain CPU's after 2013. It depends on how much market demand there is for them, mostly. So far, I don't see everybody adopting APU's overwhelmingly over CPU's. Sometimes a standalone GPU is more powerful than an APU, and that's the overwhelming consideration. In such a case nobody will even be using the onboard GPU inside the APU, so why bother buying anything more than a CPU? Has anyone started discussing to what extent the new technology can be used in existing gear or will it be a complete break with the past requiring new mobos, processing unit, memory and graphic cards (Tom's Hardware noted that at least some of the APUs would require a graphics card for say gaming to be playable). You'll still see motherboards with PCI-e slots, and you'll still see them with USB ports. Now as for whether we'll still see replaceable processors in the mid to far term future is debatable. Most people aren't building their own PC's anymore, most are buying them off the shelf, and they don't worry about expandability, they just buy new machines again later. The DIY market is shrinking to nothing these days. The best I figured it was that the benefit of the APU was cooler temperatures, maybe less circuitry on the mobo. Well, yes, the APU gets rid of the separate GPU circuitry on the motherboard, makes everything more compact. However, in some cases, the GPU's are now being harnessed for their computation abilities too, with the advent of DirectCompute from Microsoft, and OpenCL from the same people who brought you OpenGL. So they can do faster calculations than they could with only their own FPU's. Yousuf Khan |
#9
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how will APUs affect upgrading a build?
In article , "Yes" wrote:
Flasherly wrote: On Feb 2, 2:16 pm, "Yes" wrote: Who cares. --snipped-- I care. Can you even understand him? |
#10
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how will APUs affect upgrading a build?
On Feb 2, 8:54 pm, "Yes" wrote:
Flasherly wrote: On Feb 2, 2:16 pm, "Yes" wrote: Who cares. --snipped-- I care. Doesn't really matter when you're asking for future concessions and speculations. Join in the line behind all the rest. |
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