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was surprised to learn that the CPUs and GPUs on the M1x chips are essentially a single unit, and for the M1 Ultra they basically slapped two M1’s together. in
by swyx 5y ago
was surprised to learn that the CPUs and GPUs on the M1x chips are essentially a single unit, and for the M1 Ultra they basically slapped two M1’s together.
in traditional PC building, the CPU is quite distinct from the GPU. can anyone ELI5 what the benefits are to having the CPU closely integrated with GPU like the M1 has? seems a bit unwieldy but i dont know anything about computer architecture
- Koshkin 5y agoI remember how AMD 3DNow! and Intel MMX were meant to render GPUs obsolete.
- MBCook 5y agoHaving everything in one unit sharing the same pool of memory is quite common. PCs (and older) Macs didn’t do it because the CPU and GPU evolved as physically separate parts and sharing memory was too slow. I believe some Intel/AMD low power chips (non-performance laptops) have use this unified memory model as well. But it became extremely common on phones where there was no historical baggage and it was thought out from day one. I believe all the consoles use a unified memory layout now, but I’m not 100% sure. The usual limitation is you’re stuck with the on-die GPU, which can pale in comparison to a top of the line AMD or nVidia board.
- pram 5y agoEvery single consumer Intel processor has had a GPU on it for a decade.