An Idea for new graphics card....

[Dragon_CPU]

Ok me and a friend of mine were talking..and came up with an idea for a new graphics card....

This is the idea....The card itself acts like it's own motherboard.

It would have like a stock ram say 256mb or 512mb (256bit)
then have ram sockets to add more ram small ram like that of a laptop...(keep in mind this has been done on older workstation cards before as far as the ram)
But here's the difference instead of the GPU being built into the board...It would be socketed like a cpu...Coming with a standard clocked gpu...then instaed of having to buy a whole new card everytime you could just buy more ram and newer gpus and add to it like a MB. Think about maybe a quad gpu on 1 chip...also making the board with the bios flashable for better support later on and for whatever support when made.

Making the gpu's just like cpus single, dual, tri, or quad core, just remove the heatsink and remove the socketed gpu then add your new gpu and replace the heatsink???

Any opinions on this??

Also in case someone wants to claim the idea themselves my friend being the way he is submitted it to the patent office...via online...already, (guess hes just being safe...LOL)

Not saying it would happen but think of the possibilities if it could be done...

[joz]

very bad idea, imo.

They tried the whole "add your own ram" to cards along time ago (think Trident SuperVGA and Creative GraphicsBlaster era). Its just a very feasiable approach, and resocketing a card wont work, since the power requriements are going up and up and up. or just needing more amps, or more volts, or more watts.

its not feasible.

[Miker]

What makes a Graphic card so fast is it is small and everything is close, when you can change GPUs and RAM it just makes things take longer to talk to one another because they are farther away, and the hardware will have to be more complicated to recognize new GPUs.

[Dragon_CPU]

Really, but yet they can do it for a $30 motherboard with certain cpu support and speed is not an issue as far as communication...between components.

Please any more opinions..I want to hear anything anyone has to say on the matter..

[coxmaster]

It would make cards more expensive.. and less uniform. A certain GPU (or series) is usually designed to run in a specific setup, changing that makes it necessary to change many of the other aspects of the card, including software and drivers. Also, its a bad marketing idea for Nvidia or ATi b/c it kills their market.. people no longer have to spend 400$ for the newest stuff that way...

[Miker]

Really, but yet they can do it for a $30 motherboard with certain cpu support and speed is not an issue as far as communication...between components.

Please any more opinions..I want to hear anything anyone has to say on the matter..

But a $30 mobo is 10x bigger, and a graphic card can output data faster then it takes for the CPU to talk to the RAM.

[joz]

Motherboards also have more components then a vga board.
south and/not northbridges

large ram slots
expansion slots
sata and/or pata ports
i/o ports
headers
ethernet controler
sound codec
etc..

the onlything thata vga card has, is the i/o (output), ram and nothing else,

so no, there is no similarity to motherboards and graphics cards.

[werty316]

Having an upgradeable video card board wouldn't be a feasible idea since the card video card industry changes very rapidly and the upgradeable boards would be obsolete before you know it.

You also need to take into account a video card's circuitry and core components which are different between each model.

[Dragon_CPU]

Yes I know MB's and vga cards are not alike I just wandered if it would be possible.

Ok I understand all of that...But lets change this to a little make believe and say it was possible
Then what would your opinions be? remember on a make believe basis now.

Better yet if you could have a graphics card (however you wanted your dream card what would it be?)

[werty316]

Its possible but its something thats not feasible as it would be costly and would have a low lifecycle.

A dream card would simply the fastest card thats available to purchase because anything else would be a pipe dream.

[joz]

Yes I know MB's and vga cards are not alike I just wandered if it would be possible.

Ok I understand all of that...But lets change this to a little make believe and say it was possible
Then what would your opinions be? remember on a make believe basis now.

Better yet if you could have a graphics card (however you wanted your dream card what would it be?)
play any game for the rest of my life time at max settings, huge resolutions and high framerates.

and can finish a f@h WU in nanoseconds.

[coxmaster]

Wouldnt want it.. Customization creates a gap in performance due to drivers. Notice how all Xbox360s are the same.. and they all run games well because coding is designed for them.

Its the same way with GPU's (basically) so if we remove that standard it kills performance

[dumdum]

What if one of your RAMs burn up on the mini motherboard. Also, the whole warranty system wouldn't be so great.

[PP Mguire]

Lets put it this way, if it was a good idea they would do it already.

[Dragon_CPU]

Ok we already decided it wouldnt be a good Idea I was asking now everyones dream card...LOL anyway I like joz's the best part about finishing the folding WU's.

[Goliath182]

One that plays Ocarina of Time. :D

[Gray]

Great Idea but if you were the NVidia employee that came up with it you would be fired.

How are they going to make money on that? Cheap for the consumer not good for buisness.
Man it's a disposable society ATM. Thats where the mony is; and has been for quite some time.

That and comforming to one pin configuration when someone has a great idea but is limited to a certain package, makes it tough to design.

Your friend can patent that under how to lose money in the graphics industry.