layout: post title: "Flipping the relationship: GPU becomes CPU" created: 1046971623 categories:

• Multimedia PC

The fact that gaming performance is largely dependent on GPU performance today is not surprising. But with graphics processors seemingly set to outpace the CPU in transistor count with the next few iterations (logic, not cache), does this call for a new relationship between the GPU and CPU?

It seems to me that with such great importance placed on the GPU, that the GPU should become the central focus of the PC world, and make the CPU an important, but slightly-secondary concern.

And just imagine the inevitable - the economics of the GPU industry will likely lead to some sort of merger/buyout of one of the firms. What if it were to be Intel or Microsoft doing the buying? Microsoft might do it as a strategic move to counter Intel's own move to corner the mobo chip market. Intel might do it to secure that tack they seem to be taking.

Your thoughts, y'all? Obviously, with so much more dependent on the CPU, I don't see it ever being anything less than a very close second, but it just seems that the GPU will soon require faster resources, and more cooling than even the hottest CPUs, due to the fact that CPUs are (to use the Fast/Wide SCSI analogy for core clock / transistor count) Fast, and GPUs are going Fast and Wide.