why do computers have video cards?

[Jskid]

Why is there a GPU and dedicated ram for video processing, why not just make the CPU stronger and add more ram. Same question for sound cards.

 

[yhelothar]

This is because CPUs are designed to be good at a certain type of processing, in particular, serial processing. Essentially, it does one task, and then the next, etc... This is suitable for most applications.

Video processing highly relies on parallel processing. Thus, the GPU is designed around that fact. It wouldn't make sense to dedicate significant silicon to parallel processing for most users that don't play video games.

 

[greenhawk]

Why is there a GPU and dedicated ram for video processing, why not just make the CPU stronger and add more ram. Same question for sound cards.

performance is the main one. Cost is also a consideration.

Their have been several GPU features inserted into chipsets over the last several years and them they use system ram for storing the textures it uses. But outside basicl office tasks, performance is poor.

RAM is generally the expencive part if it was built into chipsets or cpus as transister count on those devices is not cheap.

The second issue is that you have the issue that putting all the devices together limit what you can do. If you need more GPU performance, you can not change it so instead of just buying a new part, you need to buy a new system.

On the other hand, building a high performance GPU into the cpu, most customers will not want it so will not be willing to pay for it. The manufacture ends up with stock no one wants.

Another design issue on this point is heat production. GPUs and cpus use a lot of power. Placing them both onto the same chip means that the total power output is far in excess of what can be removed saftly or quickly. Having to run slow due to overheating once again means a item no one wants.

As to the sound card. Most of the current ones offload most of the processing to the cpu already, so all the "soundcard" is is what they use to be back from a few decades ago, and that is a digital to analoge converter. The amount of silicon for that is nothing and as it does not change, adding it to the chipset works well (espicaly as the cost per pin is generally lower on the chipset than on a CPU).

 

[Blain]

Why is there a GPU and dedicated ram for video processing, why not just make the CPU stronger and add more ram. Same question for sound cards.

The quest for an all-in-one socket/slot solution has been around for years and years.
Basically it's been cost and technology that have held it back.

 

[Puppies04]

Why is there a GPU and dedicated ram for video processing, why not just make the CPU stronger and add more ram.

Thats a really good idea, maybe they could call it an APU. Well we can but hope....

 

[Meghan54]

Thats a really good idea, maybe they could call it an APU. Well we can but hope....

Yeah, you'd think a company that makes cpus would begin experimenting with something like this.....maybe like a Vision APU I've heard may exist in the ether from someone called AMD (?), or one of those mysterious Sandy Bridge cpus from another company. Forget the name of that company, too....kinda sounds like Intel.

 

[Anarchist420]

I think that once they get to 16nm, intel could and should add texture filtering and address units and make their IMCs faster. I think a 16 core ivy bridge (for CPU, and emulation of ROPs and SPs) with integrated texture units @ 4 GHz with a super high bandwidth QPI to DDR4 system memory could replace the discrete GPU+CPU, except for the highest end of both. 3/4 the performance of a 2500k and 4/5 to 9/10 of the performance of a GTX560Ti could probably be achieved by that solution and that's good enough for me since 1680x1050/1600x900 is a high enough internal res for me (1280x800/720 is plenty for front buffer IMO). AA with a good sampling pattern, max precision RGBA and D formats, and max ingame settings is far more important to me than anything above 1680x1050.

 

[Jskid]

A few years ago a salesman was trying to sell me a computer with an integrated video card. He told me it doesn't matter that there's no dedicated video RAM because it would just use the main RAM which there was lots of. The best argument I've heard against this is that "it's like having all your tools in one room, it works better if they're in separate rooms". Since there are integrated video cards why not just have a really strong CPU and memory? Why aren't integrated video/sound cards more popular?

 

[Cerb]

Why is there a GPU and dedicated ram for video processing, why not just make the CPU stronger and add more ram.

$$$. The CPU would be physically bigger, hotter (by a factor of 2-3x), and require several hundred more physical pins (less than 4xDDR3 1600-2133 need not apply, to replace midrange gaming cards). Lower yields and lower speeds, or a more expensive package (if MCM), much beefier OEM coolers, and even LGA and BGA pins aren't free. The added strain on the CPU voltage control circuitry would not be trivial, either.

Same question for sound cards.

If you bought a Creative product, I'm sorry 🙂. >90% of what a sound card does, today, is offer more audio ports, and better analog signal control and isolation. For what little hardware processing is needed, the issue is almost entirely paying companies like Dolby royalties, not technical issues.

A few years ago a salesman was trying to sell me a computer with an integrated video card. He told me it doesn't matter that there's no dedicated video RAM because it would just use the main RAM which there was lots of.

It's not amount, but speed. Going over PCI-e incurs a bandwidth and latency hit that kills gaming performance. Common dual-channel RAM a CPU uses has nowhere near the needed bandwidth to replace a midrange gaming card, especially with the CPU fighting the GPU for RAM IO.

Add-in video cards, as we know them, will go away, but not soon.

 

[TakeNoPrisoners]

Computers need video cards because for most gaming applications you need fast memory access and faster processing of large chunks of repetitive data. The newest integrated GPU's are very good for everything but high resolution gaming. AMD's APU's have a decently powerful GPU on board and Intel has a nice integrated solution too.

Todays integrated GPU's can handle everything from 1080p flash video via hardware acceleration and most low end games can play well on those chips.

Serious gaming and modeling programs are probably the only things that a dedicated GPU is really good for at the moment. I expect integrated chips will become the norm unless you need massive amounts of CPU power or GPU power. For most people a nice integrated solution will work very well.

 

[rudder]

i remember when games had an option for "software rendering"... basically the CPU doing the 3D.

 

[piasabird]

Why not put a TV tuner on the CPU as well. If you had 8 cores that could access 16 threads and more dedicated RAM maybe you could approach a gaming level integrated video. One problem is that how computers are designed so many interfaces are connected to the processor that it is hard to directly connect more items. The reason they integrated the video was to get faster access between the on-chip RAM and the processor. Maybe with a 128 bit bus you could do some really fantastic gaming. Then maybe USB will get faster and you can just plug in a video card into a USB slot right on the motherbord next to the processor.