ATI - Sound and graphics

Aug 16, 2006 12:57 GMT  ·  By

Nvidia has previously stated that the debated AMD-ATI merger will be in its best interest as the maker will remain the sole neutral graphics dedicated company on the market. But that wasn't the end of the shocking declarations, as it has been recently reported that the manufacturer dreams of a two in one component that would integrate 'the power' of a GPU and the one of a CPU, according to X-bit Labs.

Nvidia is not the only 'player' that intends to focus its efforts towards creating such revolutionary devices, as the new AMD-ATI company also stated it will eventually roll out a similar 'improvement'. And, if we come to think that the companies have all the equipment and the know-how in both segments, it is more probable that they will launch the ground-breaking device.

"In some segments, we could imagine GPUs integrating with CPUs, or CPUs integrating with GPUs. But we'll approach those segments as it makes sense. Because often times it's not necessarily one CPU. It could be x86. It could be ASICs, it could be PowerPC. It could be Cell. It could be ARM. It could be something else," said Nvidia's chief executive and president Jen-Hsun Huang cited by X-bit Labs. "The reason why the GPU has been separated from the CPU historically is because the two work off of completely different rhythms. And because of the different segmentations and the velocity of innovation, and all of those things, the GPU continues to be a standalone device for the segments in the marketplace that we serve. Our job isn't really to worry about which is going to integrate which; our job is to make the GPU valuable," said Mr. Huang.

Some time ago, ATI revealed a new pioneering technology that promises to revolutionize computing - a new graphics processing unit (GPU) which would control also the audio effects. More precisely, this would be a big step forward for ATI and mainly for technology, as audio capabilities on the GPU could allow graphics cards makers to multiplex audio signals into HDMI or DisplayPort outputs.

Other manufacturers tried to create such an advanced GPU. Take Havok for example. The company launched on the market its Havok FX engine, which was later used by game developers to create games featuring special physics effects produced by a dedicated Ageia PhysX processor or traditional central processing units.