AMD-ATI Plans *Combined* CPU/GPUs by 2008!

[Specialist]

Great read in EETimes.

Check this out:

http://tinyurl.com/ulr3f

Aiming to leapfrog archrival Intel Corp., Advanced Micro Devices will deliver a wide range of merged x86 CPUs with on-board graphics accelerators starting in late 2008. AMD announced its so-called Fusion program Wednesday (Oct. 25) upon the formal completion of its $5.4 billion acquisition of graphics and chip set designer ATI Technologies Inc. The merged company will ship versions of the combined processors for laptops, desktops, workstations, servers and consumer electronics devices geared for emerging markets.

Jerry Jones
http://www.jonesgroup.net

[redwudz]

I just got a AMD AM2 motherboard that uses the ATI chipsets and it will be interesting to see how it compares to the Nvidia and other chipsets for AMD CPUs. It's a economy Micro-ATX MB, a ECS RS485M-M and I'll put in a Athlon AM2 3800+ CPU that I pulled from my HTPC and use 512MB DDR2 RAM. http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/359

[TwistedLincoln]

Sounds like an interesting idea. I suppose if one could overcome any heat related issues, it would be a good way to save space. On the other hand, I wouldn't want to be forced to pay for a replacement CPU everytime I upgrade my video card, or vice versa. Not to mention what happens when one upgrades to a new motherboard -- if new boards use new CPU sockets, you'll lose both your CPU and video card in the upgrade. This isn't too useful for those of us who upgrade often.

I can certainly see it being useful for notebooks, however.

[BJ_M]

in reality - one often upgrades both MB and cpu together ... so in this regard , it makes sense

[edDV]

Must be a Microsoft plot to force a new Vista purchase each time one updates a graphics chip.

[RabidDog]

Another point .. will they still continue to produce seperate CPU's ? Maybe see out the current generation ..and then? And will the combined cpu/gpu come in various flavors of both Cpu power and GFX power? or only in some preset configs that AMD deems suitable.. I might want hyper CPU and weedy graphics or weedy cpu and hyper gfx..

Maybe the new chips will be software configurable eg software decides how much "power" will be given over to each function, thus ensuring that every micron of silicon/germanium is used to its fullest extent.