Jon Peddie Research Says New APU's Will Kill Discrete GFX

[Apoptosis]

Jon Peddie Research Announces Report on CPUs with Embedded Graphics Processors

AMD and Intel create major inflection point

TIBURON, Calif--September 13, 2010--Today, Jon Peddie Research (JPR), the industry's research and consulting firm for graphics and multimedia, announced its market study: Opportunities, Threats, and Changes Created by the EPG & HPU - Tension at the Inflection Point.

A genuine inflection point is occurring in the PC and related industries, the integration of powerful SIMD graphics processing elements with multi-core, multi-stage scalar X86 CPUs. In so doing the stalwart and ubiquitous IGP - integrated graphics processor, will fade out of existence.

Because the graphics processor unit, GPU, grew in greater complexity than the CPU during the past eight years, exceeding the transistor count, and matching or exceeding the die size of the CPU, many thought the two would never be able to cohabitate.

Amazing things have become possible as semiconductor manufacturing tolerances get ever smaller. With four times the number of transistors possible in the same space as the previous manufacturing node or feature space, the compute density demanded by GPUs suddenly becomes not just feasible, but completely possible, and practical.

Moving graphics into the CPUs will be attractive first to the builders of low-cost machines. Intel's Core i5 (Clarkdale and Arrandale), which are Embedded Processor Graphics (EPG) units, were the first wave. Intel's Sandybridge will be next generation, while AMD will introduce a massive SIMD GPU array in their fusion processors (Ontario and Llano) which will be the first Heterogeneous Processor Units (HPUs.)

The impact in the total PC and related market on discrete GPUs due to the combination of devices being offered with integrated graphics (IGPs, EPGs, and HPUs) will break the historical rise of discrete GPU sales and put the category in decline.

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The EPG/HPU will truly revolutionize the PC and associated industries. The amount of computation capability available in the size, weight, power consumption of systems equipped with EPG/HPUs, and for the price they will be offered, will upset the market dynamics like never before, and maybe not since the introduction of the PC.

Pricing and Availability
The Opportunities, Threats, and Changes Created by the EPG & HPU market study is available now in both electronic and hard copy editions, and can be purchased for $2,499 at http://www.jonpeddie.com .

About Jon Peddie Research
Dr. Jon Peddie has been active in the graphics and multimedia fields for more than 30 years. Jon Peddie Research is a technically oriented multimedia and graphics research and consulting firm. Based in Tiburon, California, JPR provides consulting, research, and other specialized services to technology companies in a variety of fields including graphics development, multimedia for professional applications and consumer electronics, high-end computing, and Internet-access product development.

[Sttm]

I wonder what that means for Nvidia in the long run. It almost seems like they will eventually have to get into more CPU development, perhaps even getting an x86 license.

[hark]

Well it's definitely possible. Sound used to be a must as a discrete card, but that has been declining and many opt to use whatever is built into the motherboard. Then again, sound is probably harder to appreciate the differences and is generally not as hardware intensive to make decent sound. At the same time, many are saying that mainstream users either don't care about graphics or find the differences to be hard to notice. The Wii's success shows that the majority don't put too much care into graphics. I can definitely see discrete GPUs becoming more of an enthusiast deal eventually, like how discrete sound cards are now.