[geeks] New Itanium machines from SGI

[Gavin Hubbard]

At 22:23 8/01/2003 -0700, you wrote:
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: geeks-bounces at sunhelp.org 
>> [mailto:geeks-bounces at sunhelp.org] On Behalf Of Joshua D Boyd
>> 
>> 
>> SGIs are nice that way.
>> 
>
>And in so many other ways. 
>
>> 
>> Programable shaders are definately getting more powerfull.  
>> Now if only
>> they had something better than AGP in between them and the ram.  
>
>
>Hear hear. But I don't really think PCI is any better than AGP. It's the
>best thing we've got right now so I guess we'll have to make do. 
>
>Honestly I think the next major jump in architecture we're going to see
>is a module that has two or more CPU's, the GPU, Sound, the Memory
>controller, and the IO controller on a single die (or maybe a single
>monobloc with several dies connected in some way) with a(or several)
>HUGE cache(s) for all of them. 

My bet is that in future architectures they'll eventually figure out how to
integrate the main memory on die i.e. large full-speed direct access memory
systems. 

Ignoring the current issues of fabrication and cost - imagine what you
could do with a GB of memory on die. The processor speed would almost be
irrelevant.

Regards,

Gavin