PC Hardware

nv55 · Guest

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2570

G72 and G73 Info; Plus NVIDIA's Quest for a GPU Socket

We continue to hear new details about G72 and G73 here in Taiwan, and
the latest batch of info from our vendors is that G72 and G73 will be
pin compatible with NV40 and NV43. In other words, your next NVIDIA
video card might have the same PCB from the 6600GT, but with a
different GPU.

This means lower cost to the manufacturer - there is no need for new
R+D or board designs. It also means G72 and G73 will launch very fast
when the decision comes from NVIDIA as vendors can very easily switch
production from the older chips to the new ones. Two vendors confirmed
with us that they are already retooling their PCB for six pin 12V molex
with the anticipation that G72 and G73 SLI might need the additional
power, but even NVIDIA won't comment to the manufacturers at this
point.

A lot seems to hinge on ATI's future choices with R580, X1600 and
X1300. As of now, the launch date for X1600 is still late November and
NVIDIA isn't exactly hurting for new value and midrange SKUs with the
success of 6600GT. The X800GTO and X800GTO2 really give 6600GT a run
for its money, but we digress.

NVIDIA's Secret Flip Chip GPU

Manufacturers seem to think G72 and G73 will be an easy tool over from
NV40/43, but another vendor claims NVIDIA has bigger plans. They claim
that NVIDIA is working on flip chip GPU sockets for motherboards.
Apparently, inside NVIDIA engineering teams have several prototypes
where the GPU, rather than the CPU, is the main focus of a motherboard
with two sockets: one for the GPU and another for the CPU. Whether or
not such a machine will ever see the light of day is difficult to say
right now. However, the idea of pin compatible GPUs already suggests
that we are halfway there when it comes to buying GPUs the same way we
buy CPUs: in flip chips. We have plenty of questions, like how the
memory interface will work and how that will affect performance, but
GPU sockets are likely less a question of "if", but rather "when".

Iain McClatchie · Guest

I'd like to see a GPU socket where the memories are attached to the
same substrate as the GPU die.

If you look at a modern CPU, the die is in a heat spreader attached
balls-down to the top of a substrate that looks a lot like a little
PC board. As of 3 years ago, one name for this substrate was ALIVH.
The possibilities are quite exciting here, and I'm not sure why
they've not been explored before:

- chip-to-substrate connection pitch is around 120 um, in both X
and Y.
- even a Pentium 3 had well over 1000 connections to the
substrate, mostly for power. It seems reasonable to have 800+
data pins today.
- the same substrate is used in cell phones, so it's cheap and can
be made reasonably large (2" x 3").

A 512b DRAM bus would be quite reasonable on this package, along
with a PCIe x16 interface. Best of all, the socket ends up with
just the PCIe x16, (maybe HT x8), two DVI, and power coming out,
which might make it cheaper than a CPU socket.

Downsides:

- Does NVidia take over the graphics board biz, or do they ship
bare die? If the former, they get to handle memory chip
inventory, which is generally a money loser.
- Need a rev of the package for every DRAM supplier/version.
- Form factor is horizontal rather than vertical.

The last thing might be turned into an advantage, if NVidia
wanted to get *really* aggressive. They could define a
motherboard with all the usual bits (they're nearly all on the
NVidia southbridge these days anyway), with an Athlon+memory on
one side and the GPU on the other. Boot from flash (required),
stick a hard drive on top and a fan on one side, blowing through
the PSU, and the entire PC form factor could get down to
4" x 6" x 4" and 100W, like that little Apple cube, but smaller
and with less complex packaging.

Conor · Guest

In article <1129854415.845376.314960@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com>,
nv55 says...

Wes Felter · Guest

On 2005-10-22 00:11:14 -0500, "Iain McClatchie" <iain-3@truecircuits.com> said:

zzipper · Guest

This would be really good for us but...it would probably really piss of the
motherboard mfgs :-) Imagine being able to defeat the 6 month obsolescence
we live with now by just upgrading a cpu and gpu. I think this would be
great, hopefully it happens.

"Conor" <conor.turton@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:MPG.1dc42bb564fd155398b20c@news.individual.net...

Alfie [UK] · Guest

On Sun, 23 Oct 2005 13:26:24 -0400, "zzipper" <zzipper@sympatico.ca>
wrote:

Magnulus · Guest

They ought to be moving towards integrating the graphics onto the
motherboard in some fashion. In this day adn age, there is simply no good
reason to have the video as an add-in card, heck, a good deal of the sound
out there is onboard now. It would also allow for much better thermal
solutions for the graphics chip- imaging being able to stick a copper
heatsink and 80mm fan on your graphics chip, for instance. You could clock
it higher and it would run quieter.

Michael W. Ryder · Guest

Magnulus wrote:

Andy Glew · Guest

"Magnulus" <magnulus@bellsouth.net> writes:

chrisv · Guest

Magnulus wrote:

chrisv · Guest

nv55 wrote:

abc · Guest

"chrisv" <chrisv@nospam.invalid> wrote in message
news:c6cql1dk2v2e9sccnt4r2ip4h719imroip@4ax.com...

chrisv · Guest

abc wrote:

abc · Guest

"chrisv" <chrisv@nospam.invalid> wrote in message
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chrisv · Guest

abc wrote:

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