Nvidia declares the CPU dead

[nekrosoft13]

A MISSIVE from a guy called Roy Taylor dropped into our paws, and we were intrigued by its contents.

Nvidian boy Roy basically declares that the CPU is dead, and Nvidia's chips do all the real work in a PC.

To back up his claims. He quotes almost an entire article from TGDaily, penned by our old mucker Theo Valich, and found here.

We say "almost", because Roy omits the bits he doesn't like and highlights the bits he does.

Just in case you're wondering here's a bit he missed off:

"In case you wonder, no, Nvidia's CEO did not deliver explanations on the results of Windows hardware survey which blamed nv4_displ.dll driver for almost a third of BSODs in Windows Vista (Google search will reveal around 613.000 results for a "Nvidia BSOD" search)."

The following letter is reproduced exactly as we got it with only formatting changes made. Links were removed during HTMLising, but can be found in the original article which, ironically, wasn't linked in the email. Almost like they didn't want you to read the full version for some reason. µ

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From: Roy Taylor [mailto:RTaylor@nvidia.com]
Sent: 10 April 2008 23:36
Subject: The best job in the world.

Guys I have the best job in the world. Official. I cant tell you how much fun we’re having here right now.

I don’t know how much this will mean to you all but for those that don’t know a war has just started that will likely be written about for years and which will affect everyone who owns a PC. Everyone.

Basically the CPU is dead. Yes, that processor you see advertised everywhere from Intel. Its run out of steam. The fact is that it no longer makes anything run faster. You don’t need a fast one anymore. This is why AMD is in trouble and its why Intel are panicking. They are panicking so much that they have started attacking us. This is because you do still [need] one chip to get faster and faster – the GPU. That GeForce chip. Yes honestly. No I am not making this up. You are my friends and so I am not selling you. This **** is just interesting as hell.

Today your PC plays video (its our chip that makes that work), you play games (its our chip that makes that work), you rip movies (yup our chip again) – you get the picture?

Today we hit back at Intel this is what the press are saying, I thought you’d be interested…

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The visual computing clash: Nvidia CEO opens a can of whoop-ass for Intel

http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/04/24/nvidia-declares-war-intel

[Zapablast05]

Nvidia can nom Intel.

[Ninja Prime]

Hey Nvidia, every comp has a CPU nowadays, how many have GPUs?

Owned.

Intel has 70 billion dollars that disagrees.

[zer0]

teh inquirer ftl

[Tomato]

I don't see what the problem here is at all. All "Roy" is saying is that your money is better spent on a GPU then a CPU, which I agree with. If you had $2000 to buy a computer with woud you spend 1500 of it on a 9770? No, you would buy a graphics card first and then buy a CPU to run it.

We all know every computer has a CPU and every computer has a GPU as well of some sort. He is just saying the CPU has become limited in its impact in most apps when compared to the GPU.

99% of the games out their benefit more from a good graphics card then a good CPU. Except for 3Dmark06.

Example: Would you rather run crysis on a Quad core and a 8400GS/Intel integrated or a Wolfdale and a 8800GTX. All he is saying here is that there is more bang for the buck in graphics vs CPU.

[Lfctony]

I agree with the last post. Video cards should be where the big money is spent on a PC. You benefit more in the long run from it, you have obvious differences immediately when upgrading, and to be honest, you're getting your money's worth by spending big. Take the 8800GTX and the X6800. Which of the 2 was a better investment?

[Toss3]

What a bunch of bullcrap! The only thing you need a gpu for these days is gaming, the rest can be done on the cpu+integrated graphics. Which explains why millions of people are still on intel integrated gpus instead of top end AMD or NVIDIA ones.

Seriously, what a tool.

[rhink]

What a bunch of bullcrap! The only thing you need a gpu for these days is gaming, the rest can be done on the cpu+integrated graphics. Which explains why millions of people are still on intel integrated gpus instead of top end AMD or NVIDIA ones.

Seriously, what a tool.

His point still stands. Most of those people running word with a system that has integrated graphics really needs a faster CPU, and that is, in fact, why Intel is worried. He probably did lay on the hyperbole a bit thick, but that's partly in answer to intel's statement about not needing discrete graphics anymore. It is the GPU that does a lot of the grunt work for a lot of what consumers use PC's for.... even if it has integrated graphics, there's still a decent chance you're doing video decoding. Also, GPU's are just starting to peak into the general purpose processing realm.

I don't think either type of processor is really dead, they will start moving closer and closer together, however. CPU's are going to pick up more GPU functions (see Larrabee, it's a specialized multicore x86), GPU's are going to pick up more CPU functions (see CUDA), and at some point they might meet in the middle.

[Sazar]

What a bunch of bullcrap! The only thing you need a gpu for these days is gaming, the rest can be done on the cpu+integrated graphics. Which explains why millions of people are still on intel integrated gpus instead of top end AMD or NVIDIA ones.

Seriously, what a tool.

Integrated graphics is still a gpu.

[Tomato]

What a bunch of bullcrap! The only thing you need a gpu for these days is gaming, the rest can be done on the cpu+integrated graphics. Which explains why millions of people are still on intel integrated gpus instead of top end AMD or NVIDIA ones.

Seriously, what a tool.


That same argument can be used for why you don't need a Quad or even a dual core. All the computing you are referencing can be done on a single P4.

[Toss3]

Integrated graphics is still a gpu.
I know that of course, but most people don't need more than that, so nvidia's gpus would be really wasteful weren't it for gaming. Hybrid sli proves my point.

That same argument can be used for why you don't need a Quad or even a dual core. All the computing you are referencing can be done on a single P4.

Well, you try running a blu-ray disc on a p4 and see what happens.

My point here is that the average consumer will gain much more from buying a fast dual/quad core processor and using the integrated chip, instead of getting a high-end gpu with a low end processor. Even getting a fast hard drive would be more useful than a high end gpu.

Declaring one or the other dead is just absurd.

[Tomato]

I think you need to define the computing you are talking about better. I mean if all of the sudden we are decoding blurays then you can run that easily on a single core with a 8400GS.

[Zapablast05]

Hamster Wheel FTW!!
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/images/Enlarge_image/large/610771_A.jpg

[methimpikehoses]

hurr @ Roy

[Toss3]

I think you need to define the computing you are talking about better. I mean if all of the sudden we are decoding blurays then you can run that easily on a single core with a 8400GS.
I'm talking about what an average-Joe would use his/her computer for. Most people don't play games at all, which makes a high-end gpu unnecessary. So if you want fast boot up time and fast speed in applications + video decoding, a high end processor is the way to go(at least now when the prices are ridiculously low). And even though an 8400Gs could fully accelerate a blu-ray movie, most people wouldn't even know how to use it properly.

The only benefit you see from a gpu from nvidia is higher fps in games, and of course video acceleration which is pretty much a moot point as most processors are able to handle it just as well. That's it.

[slaWter]

This Intel vs nV bashing is so stupid. They should team up to deliver the true highend platform, SLI on Intel boards....

[dxx]

If I was nVidia, I too would issue a press release declaring that the CPU is dead. It would be a delightfully dramatic way to announce to the world that it needs to be replaced, and that we might need to see about getting a new motherboard in too, as that might've been damaged when the chip went.

[Madpistol]

I think Nvidia may be in the position to win this. Vista Ultimate was released with the premise that the user has a good graphics system that can run the visuals on that OS. I think Microsoft may be playing both sides of this game. No one has thought that it may not just be Intel and Nvidia fighting; Microsoft is the chief programmer on BOTH platforms, so the success of Nvidia and Intel are very largely dependent on what Microsoft decides to gear their operating systems towards. Microsoft's current move would suggest that they're moviing more towards visual computing because of Aero, but the processor still has to do all the number crunching required by the OS. The funny thing in this situation though is that Vista seems to be more of a RAM hog than a CPU hog, so who's getting played in this scenario?

I'm not one for predictions, but if I had to predict who will come out victorious in this situation, I'd say Nvidia is on the right track. Intel is just being a bully; they talk a big game but back off when confronted with hard numbers.

[CaptNKILL]

I understand that GPUs are much more important now than they ever have been... by a long shot.

But saying that it no longer matters how fast your CPU is?

Please...

I'd say that the focus on adding more and more cores isn't really helping much, but I guarantee that there will be a rather significant performance difference between a pc running a decent CPU vs one running an excellent CPU, with all other specs being identical. It'll be more apparent in gaming and other system heavy tasks obviously.

As games grow more complex the CPU load is going to keep rising. Offloading physics to the GPU could help, but it won't eliminate the need for a faster CPU.

[walterman]

They should exchange SLI & QPI licenses.

The CPU isn't dead, and Nvidia knows that the CPUs will keep growing & growing, and you cannot compare the SP units in a GPU with a real CPU core, it's like comparing a bycicle with a motorbike. There is an huge world inside a x86 core. Why do you think that a 45nm penryn quad core has around 820M transistors for 4 cores while a G80 has around 680M transistors for 128 SPs ?

And yes, you can offload work from the CPU to the DMAs, GPUs, Sound cards, NPUs, PPUs, ... but how many of you are using the h264 hw acceleration of your gfx card ? And if i remember, the hw sound acceleration is also disabled in vista, so, it's like we're returning to the roots of software.

[rhink]

Why do you think that a 45nm penryn quad core has around 820M transistors for 4 cores while a G80 has around 680M transistors for 128 SPs ?

Because that's the number of transistors Moore's law said it should have.

Roughly half of modern CPU's are usually cache, because they've ran outta stuff to do with all those transistors. That 680M transistor G80 chip probably has more transistors actually dedicated to logic than the penryn. It really comes down to the fact that the penryn is 45nm, the G80 isn't. GPU's of the same generation frequently have more transistors than an equivalent generation/process CPU.

[walterman]

Well, we need the cache, cause the main memory is slow compared to the main logic, and we need fast memory cause we're bandwidth hungry, and even the GPUs have little L1 texture caches, or caches for the gpu registers, ... cause they're even more bandwidth hungry. And a CPU has a lot of extra logic for dynamic out or order algorithms like tomasulo, scoreboarding, or replay system, for the complex FPU units, to predict branches that could cause a flush of the pipeline, for the complex memory addressing modes, ... it's another world. As i said, it's not fair to compare a CPU core with a GPU SP.

[rhink]

Not completely, but they are slowly getting closer together. We're seeing a trend in CPU's away from all that extra logic for branch prediction, and towards simpler cores, which you can stick more of on a chip. And we're seeing CPU architectures modified to do graphics (Larrabee).

A lot of this comes down to the fact that we've run out of ways to increase single threaded performance by throwing more transistors at it, so we try to come up with other ways to spend those transistors, even if it doesn't offer much speed boost (like throwing 4 cores at a single threaded application). That, I think, is essentially what was meant by the "CPU is dead".... not that we don't need it anymore, but that it's become an afterthought, sorta like core logic chipsets, simply because it's not keeping up in terms of performance.

[walterman]

Well, i agree with you about the single threaded applications. Intel is trying to push multi-core coding, and graphics processing is an area where you can use a lot of parallelism. I had the same thoughts a couple of years ago about the x86 architecture, and about how to speed it up. It's almost impossible to extract more parallelism from single threaded code.

It sucks when you see video compressors like xvid that are poorly optimized for the new multi-core cpus, or with lack of SSE optimizations. I think that they only contribute to waste power & computing time. A change is needed, no doubt.

Personally i would love to keep having a CPU, a GPU, and the rest of specialized units, but i think that intel wants to return to the roots, when the CPU did everything, and yes, Larrabee is going to be a nice sample of the future multi-core CPUs. Or even the new AVX extensions that intel is developing actually.

For now, i just hope that intel & nvidia exchange SLI & QPI licenses. Would be great to have an option for SLI chipsets.

[Yaboze]

What about all the business PC's that are crunching databases, excel users crunching numbers, etc? Not GPU

Ripping video is a CPU function. Watching is a GPU and CPU function. You can rip video with a program written in Text/ANSI. You don't need to see it, just read it, decode and write the file out.

What I do agree with is that the GPU should take over for the CPU and the GPU is more important than ever these days.

In other news, Nvidia needs to learn how to put out drivers sooner than every 120 days and put out new and improved products instead of adding +1000 to the name and rebranding it with less memory and bandwidth.