With AMD and Intel working on integrating a GPU in to their CPU's the only market that Nvidia is going to have is the high end gamers. Nvidia low end GPU market will dry up really fast, and before every one says this will not happen remember back in the good old days of the 80386 and the 80387 math co-processor. Every one said that when the 80486 came out that the built in co-processor would never work that its not as good as the separate ones. Intel and AMD are the 2 major CPU manufactures and they will be pushing it. Nvidia will be around for a few years after the CPU, GPU integration. Nvidia's market share will decline by at lease 30% the first year and then 70% after the third year of AMD and Intel releasing their integrated CPU.

this battle is going to be great, and I have front row seat here in TG Daily, let me get the popcorn ready.

Maybe Intel will finally have some competition. Sorry AMD fanbois, but AMD hasnt given Intel competition since the Athlon 64 days.

I have no idea where you are pulling these figures out. No ground bases, it's all pure talk. Maybe Intel failed at the end to implement a discrete-GPU class buildin-GPU into a CPU at the end? There's barely any existing samples or products that would suggest your "vision". And you speak like you know for sure they will succeed, which is hardly the story in computer components.

Your scenario is simply a wild thought. I think Nvidia will take 2 years to start transforming their GPUs to CPU alike... rendering CPU speed obsolete as everything will be processed under GPGPU hence after, CPU process will end up taking only 5% of a computer's workload while everything will be on the GPU. CPU cores and raw power are no longer a big factor.

Ya, I'm not quite sure what I'm talking about but who cares... it's just pure talk. Blah...

The winning chip will be placed on the board and it will be called CPU.

All last generations of CPUs from either AMD or Intel can offer all the processing capabilities to satisfy all kind of customers. AMD & Intel have done really great job over the last 6 years in this regard. For only around $300 these days, you can get a blazing-fast quad-CPU for your rig to handle any application you may think of.
On the other hand, GPUs are still far behind what it should be. Even though these chips are limited in functionality and primarily targeted to process only graphics workloads, their development has been very slow, and yet they are very expensive. GeForce 9800 GX2 is twice as cost effective as XBOX or PS3, and can’t deliver the same performance.
As much as I hate Intel, I would love to see its big step into the GPU business, Nvidia people need to know before they think they can compete Intel that their current GPUs are really suck to begin with. GPGPU project is a good idea but I think it’s mainly targeted for mobile devices and low-end market, I don’t see its success in the high-end gaming world, at least for the upcoming 10 years.

"GeForce 9800 GX2 is twice as cost effective as XBOX or PS3, and can’t deliver the same performance."

What are you talking? You get more perfomans then in console, let go with devil may cry 4 on consoles it has 30fps on pc it can have 120fps. And games on pc are different let go witg gears of war this is an fine example . On pc it is more demanding becouse you have higher resolution and of course higher resolution texture witch the game is even more prety. So explane more what the hell are you talking (and games have to bo in xbox360 and pc for comparison).

Somehow, if you think of So Many CPU makers, SUN,Intel,IBM,Cray & think of everyone calling Jenson & saying:"Got new GPU to replace my 75 products with...BTW is there any O/S?"
NOooo, It is impossible, Food for Hungry Minds, NO More.
Physician thomas stewart von drashek md

I am skeptic about this topic. For the fact, anything could change any time in this tech world. Who thought AMD will whoop ass of Intel back in P4 days? Who thought iPhone will be a massive hit? Its all very dynamic and unpredictable. This is why both Steve Jobs and Bill Gates said "Why I come to work everyday because nobody know what would be the trend tomorrow" in their famous joint interview.

But I must point out few things.

1. General Computer application involves lot of loops (recursive calculations/processes), out-of-order processing so on. On the other hand "same instruction set used for many purposes". But in GPUs.. "instructions are there for a specific process". So.. CPU has some edge here.

2. CPUs are more or less saturated in their performance per single core. Multi-core will take ages to unleash their true power (i.e. until software ppl to come up with a universal parallel infrastructure to utilize cores whatever the program, however they program... threads/pthreads/openmp/TBB.. are partial solutions). But GPU doesn't have that issue. In that sense, GPU has some edge.

3. Up to this day, I haven't heard a PC completley based on a non-CPU like processor. Maybere there is experimental ones. But... the fact is.. nobody is going in that direction. Only advantage taken from GPU is, when there is a heavy number crunching task to do, outsource it to a GPU kinda thing. But conversley, CPUs are used for all purpose of processing tasks (i.e. graphics, sound, everything). So... there is chance for CPU in here.

4. Obviously... GPUs can give 200 fps if they want, but why T.V. is still 30fps ?? Recent intel demos were rated around 20-30 fps. So.. overall, that's sufficient. And you can have that for a cheap price as well.

Considering these few factors, CPU has some chance. But as I mentioned earlier, anything can change anytime.. no body can predict.

I think they're referring to the evolution of the PC in general. Let's face it, a great 'general purpose' computer is a great game machine, but there's one thing better: an actual game machine. And if you look at what powers the game generating engine inside, at the priority of the component structure, you'll see a higher priority given to the graphics processing chips. The cpu is becoming more and more like it was in it's original form, nothing more than a sophisticated math co-processor and information distributor. All of the emphasis in the design of today's OS is to make it more graphical, hence the overwhelming significance of the graphics subsystem, which may become the main system, with the CPU a subordinate component.
That's what I think they're talking about.

Comparing FPS is just ridiculous; games are made using different API’s for both PC and console, so you are actually comparing two different games.

IMO, hardware performance is only fair way to compare those platforms.

The total processing power for the 9800 GX2 (which utilizes two G92 GPUs) is 0.768 TeraFlop/s
The processing power for the XBOX 360 is around 1.0 Teraflop/s.
The total processing power for PS3 (Cell RSX) is around 2.something TeraFlop/s.
Only the upcoming 9900 GX2 (two GT200 GPUs) will do 2 TFLOPs and that will match the processing power of the PS3, but imagine how much they will charge the poor customer.
I’m not a fan of any one of those; I want people to realize that those high-end GPUs are way overpriced for their performance. Keep in mind that the hardware cost is getting lower as the new deeper process node (65nm & 55nm) is used.

"I have no idea where you are pulling these figures out. No ground bases, it's all pure talk." Everything is pure talk until it happens. Like I said when Intel desided to intgrate their math co-processor every one at the time said that it wouldn't work that there were better ones produced by 3rd party companies that are now no longer around.

"Your scenario is simply a wild thought. I think Nvidia will take 2 years to start transforming their GPUs to CPU alike"

Nvidia tried to buy VIA pretty much for there CPU TGdaily wrote about this a while back. Nvidia can see the writing on the wall and know its going to happen how fast this is going to happen is up for debate. The reason for my numbers is history I have seen it happen many times over and the 2 major CPU companies are bringing out CPU GPU combos and most people will not see the need to spend more on a seprate GPU.

- Who is to say that Intel won't offer to purchase Nvidia, put a GPU as a 'core' in their existing CPU's which would eliminate the issues with bus speed and such and also give us the best of both worlds. Besides are there any operating systems that will run on a GPU type processor? Likely not and without support from the OS makers how would that work anyway. I'd say it's going to a long time before x86/x64 goes away. x64 is just getting started.

I'm not sure I really understand how they are thinking anyway, the two items do totally different things...

Now you still are mixing all together. First of all what the heck has 2 teraflop of cell procesing doing in a gpu question? Becouse cpu is doing something ells not the graphich (ok a little has something with it but not a lot) And now the pc has become better when the gefroce 8 serias was out and ati hd2 serias. So don't slap together the cpu and gpu and there is not all in teraflop the 8800gtx/ultra has around 0.5teraflop (some more but I don't know the exact number) and still is near the ati 3870x2 witch has 1 teraflop. And the most important thing is that the games on consoles are mostly on 720p witch is bellow 1280x1024 and then upscale is use (not all there are some games that use 640p or like in the ps3 tittle gt5 witch is in full 1080p rendered with impresive 60fps and in my oppinion gt5 devolopers are the best in field for ps3 coding).

So now I will ask again what did you mean that console has better hardware (witch is old like a duck in pc gaming that hardware almoast 2 years) and explain but not like before that you mixed the cpu and gpu together?

But I give you that the gpu are really overpriced from nvidia side ati has much better allways in price/performans high-end model.

Why easy.. The best way to display "real life" stuff is ray tracing. Intel got this guy aboard who made quake er al into a ray tracing unit. You here did report on this ( intel displayed it on there skulltrail unit ). Why is this the dead ( at last ) of the gpu ? All Gpu do one thing : Build 3d Objects ( boxes ) and then dress them nicely, uisng some pretty nice proggys. Intel sees an alternative : brute force, called ray traycing. They like it, cause it scales directliy to their cpu power. The german showed on a low device that his routines are enough to play a not outaded game. I think of larabee like this: EMU Soft to run dx 10 crap, and a superior engine ( Remember it´s with ray traycing = the same movie producers use ) which will crush the cheap consoles forever. Why i am looking forward to this move ?? I hate oblivion.. on a technilogical scope, cause it was counting on Nvidia to do their thing ( at time of release unplayable, Nvidia Pro on tema). I hate Vista although it is MUCH better than XP. Why ? Nvidida losers again ( and AMD / ATI again ). Intel inventions: Sata - worx, pci -worx, usb worx and on and on the list goes.

I really do look forward to a time where i don´t have to shell out an absurd amount of money to "probalbly" be able to play a game. I Know this is not the right place to rant. But you brought on so many Stories AMD / Nvidia related which sounden like a cheap copy from their site that i hat to write this. Hopefully some of your "in depth" guys brings up a in depth story 8 just like the atom story who "tells" the trith. One big advantages of a online site is that it does not rely to the adveterismus as much as printed mag. ( I Killed my game mag after they turned to EA Friendly with > 20 Pages ( no Joke ) of EA Games adverts)...

In Hope for your inside story on Intels going GFX Crazy

yup

Lets think logically. If you were to go with just a CPU with a GPU built in, how do you upgrade? Every time a new game comes out your going to replace your CPU/GPU chip and possibly your mainboard? Its much easier for a novice to plug in a card then it is to replace/swap your CPU and motherboard out.

Also you'd be pushed to buy one brand of GPU over the other depending on the CPU brand. So your choices will be limited. What if I want to buy Intel and pair it with an ATI based GPU? You couldn't. The more integration, the less choices given.

Chipset, memory, CPU, graphics are obsoleted too fast.

If we look at things logically, the GPU is dead in the sence of becomming a programmable PU, it can do anything. The only reason GPU's are still named as such is that they are on a seperate graphics board, making them distinctly an object of their own. Now they do logic also, which is a good indicator of my point.

As for the CPU, it is an obvious move to take the ideas of programmable PU's and have them used for everything.
Sooner or later we wont be seeing the GPU built into the CPU, but simply using progrtammable cores and PU's to do everything. There wont be the need for the seperation if one PU can do EVERYTHING.

Fact is, the world needs to wake up, grasp onto, a)64bit programming (what the hell is with this!!??), and b) multi-core programming.
Once people have shoved the multi-core idea into themselves then the progress will be up the obvious path.

You just bought lots of crap by Intel, there are several problems with raytracing first of all for low settings what will replace AA there are no such thing for replace that, and second Intel is much talking but they never mention that for raytracing you will need 16 cores minimum. Gpu will live for a long time.

And for those who say gpu/cpu (or fusion) read some articles this will be mid-end for high-end it will still be only GPU no cpu inside (AMD has said this like 3 months ago).

x86 is dead would be a better one. The fact is that intel has been embracing parallelism for a few years with dual and now quad cores. Multiple stream processors have been integral to video cards for more than a decade.

Ray tracing isn't reality on the current generation of intel equipment, nor on the next, nor on the next. Its going to take 32 to 64 cores to make anything playable in real time, and I suspect that its going to take a generation beyond that to make it preform like current generation raster games preform. Thats a decade nVidia has to perfect its GPU as CPU programing.

I'll add that the New Radeon HD4870x2 will have 960 stream processors an can render global-illumination
quite well. with better and better rasterization techniques we won't need ray tracing.

not until we have 20 TFLOP PC... whic isn't going to happen till 2040 or more.