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Graphics-Enabled CPUs To Take Off In 2011

Posted by timothy on from the in-my-day-we-had-integrated-graphics dept.

angry tapir writes "Half the notebook computers and a growing number of desktops shipped in 2011 will run on graphics-enabled microprocessors as designers Intel and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) increase competition for the units that raise multimedia speeds without add-ons. The processors with built-in graphics capabilities will be installed this year on 115 million notebooks, half of total shipments, and 63 million desktop PCs, or 45 percent of the total, according to analysts."

1 of 172 comments (clear)

  1. The more things change... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Way back near the dawn of time, Intel created the 8086, and its slightly less capable little brother, the 8088. And they were reasonable processors ... but although they were good at arithmetic, it was within tight constraints. Fractions were just too hard. Trigonometry sent the poor little souls into a spin. And so on.

    And thus, the 8087 was born. It was able to carry the burden of floating point mathematical functions, thereby making things nice and fast for those few who were willing to pony up the cash for the chip.

    Then out came the 80286 (let's forget about the 80186, it's not really all that relevant here). It was better at arithmetic than the 8086, but still couldn't handle floating point - so it had a friend, the 80287, that filled the same purpose for the 80286 as the 8087 did for the 8086 and 8088. (We'll blithely ignore Weitek's offerings here. They existed. They're not really germane to the discussion.)

    Then the 80386. Much, much better at arithmetic than the 80286, but floating point was still an Achilles heel - so the 80387 came along for the ride.

    And finally, the i486. By this stage, transistors had become small enough that Intel could integrate the FPU on die - so there was no i487. At least, not until they came out with the i486SX, which I'll blithely ignore. And so, an accelerator chip that was once hideously expensive and used only by a few who really needed it was integrated onto chips that everybody would buy.

    Funnily enough, it was around the time that the i486 appeared that graphics accelerators came onto the scene - first for 2D (who remembers the Tseng Labs W32p?), and then for 3D. Expensive, used only by a few who could justify the cost ... is this starting to sound familiar to you?

    So another cycle is beginning to complete, and more functionality that used to be discrete is now to be folded onto the CPU. I can't help but wonder ... what will be next?