Integrated and Discrete Graphic Cards are going to perform the same in the future? Please Confirm!

I just saw a video in youtube, the guy from voodoo pc was talking about the integrated and discrete graphic cards will be performing the same in the near future with perhaps an intel technology, can someone confirm if this is true? And please provide some links. Thank you!

 

If you were talking about how he said some major improvements were coming with integrated cards, then I have to say he probably knows something we don't. However, performing the same is extremely doubtful. Making integrated cards run games as well as SOME discrete cards is closer to reality, though.

 

I was pondering if intel will dedicate some of its CPU cores to do graphics... just a guess.

 

yes i've read the news, in 4 years intel will be able to catch up with nvidia and ati. some kind secret weapon.

 

Intel has been talking about Larabee for graphics and how its the future but its not supposed to come out till 2010 I think and some people (namely Nvidia) feel that it will never equal a dedicated card. As of now its all speculation and still years away.

For articles just google larabee.

 

Well if he means something like the HD3200 performning near the 8400m GS, yea, ill buy it, but something like the next gen (few gens even) IGP going head to head with something in the 4800 or GTX class......

 

Larabee IS a dedicated card, set for release by 2010. People always confuse it with the next generation of Intel Integrated Graphics, which do not have any special fanfare or name. They just claimed that by 2010, they'd have integrated 10 times faster than the x3100. That means performing on the level of an 8600m GT GDDR3 dedicated card.

AMD has already released integrated graphics (HD3200) that outperform certain low-end dedicated GPUs. They'll release a more powerful version soon enough. If anyone is going to push the future of Integrated GPUs, I think It'll be AMD with their Fusion processors (set for release late 2009) which will include at least 2 CPU cores and 1 next-gen (5000 series ATI) GPU core. THAT will be the true binding of integrated graphics with dedicated performance.

 

By 10x faster do you <they> mean clocks? frames? 10x the score on 3dmark? Im just wondering because if they mean frames then i am very interested to see if they hold true to this claim.

 

i thought they were taking over nvidia and ati with the new cards.

 

I'm not sure, I think we'd all like to know that. Personally, I believe they meant a 10x higher 3DMark06 score.

It'd be great if they held to their claim! I'm not so sure it is going to work out, but I hope it does.

I think you mean beat nvidia and ati? They certainly wont be buying those companies...

That's supposed to be Larabee, released in 2010. It will be a dedicated GPU competing against the high end dedicated GPUs from Nvidia and ATI. So...3 years.

 

why would we really care?
making an integrated card 10X faster is just like replacing it with a discrete card. Pumping a whole lot of power, in terms of clocks and latency, into an integrated card would really make it a discrete one. We would still have to pay the same prices as for a discrete card? would not we? so why care?

Thanks for the news though, good to know what we are at.

 

If they mean 3dmark I wont really be impressed as the scored could be skewered by the 2010 version of something like the QX9650, plus im sure there are other factors that boosts the score even more. If they get like 10x on framerates at like WXGA resolution....then i would be impressed.

@swell9 But think; thats 2010, so the performance of discrete cards will increase, and the requirements of games will increase. Think of the GTX 280 vs the 7900 GTX

 

Unless GPU instructions change drastically, CPU's will never be able to outperform GPU's.

The architecture is quite different.

Now if there is an integrated GPU in a CPU, then that might be a different story, except that I find it hard to believe a single onboard chip would ever be able to perform against a dedicated card with all the real estate it has to put chips on its own PCB.

 

CPU's can already outperform GPU's. it just depends on the task. GPU's obviously have more total processing power, but the actual processing speed depends on the inherent parallelism of the task. if a task is able to be "parallelized" then the gpu will outperform a cpu. otherwise, no.

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Also, what we currently think of as "integrated" gpu's, will eventually OUTPERFORM dedicated gpu's. its just a matter of latency of bus speed. its very difficult to increase the bus speed between the cpu and gpu. as the individual component speeds increase, it will be more and more necessary to increase the communication speed between them. and eventually, the most cost effective solution (for high end chips) will be to integrate with the cpu.

 

Integrated GPUs might be able to outperform low end dedicated cards, like the ATI 3200, but they will never be able to compete with high end cards. Besides, it's as swell9 said; what's the point of having ultra powerful integrated cards? They exist to provide graphic processing for as little power consumption as possible. If the card is more powerful, it negates its only advantage. Might as well get a dedicated card then...

 

To the OP:

It's just not possible. To make GPU faster, you need to dedicate more transistors, which means higher power consumption, and higher price. The advantages of having integrated at that point will basically disappear. If you want integrated to perform fast, you also need super fast memory dedicated onto it.

Only place where "integrating" makes it faster is integrating the memory controller on the CPU. For everything else, it means its gonna be made for low price and low power consumption. This is gonna be even more true with GPU-on-CPU products like Fusion. Now they'll have even less die space for integrated graphics.

You can achieve only 2 out of the 3 in the following:
-price
-power consumption
-performance

you can achieve 2 things out of the 3, but never all 3.

 

just what i was at too

 

I am just thinking maybe intel want to somehow eliminate GPU all together, and use one multi cores CPU running as both CPUs and GPUs, and intel's processors got a lot higher clock speed than current GPUs. Is that something possible for intel to achieve?

 

According to masterchef yes, but im kind of skeptical.

 

I'm guessing it's a prophecy of some sorts

 

But in 4 years Nvidia & ATI will have octo-core dual GPU cards with each core having 2,000 USPs =D