History of Processors and Graphics Cards

Have you ever thought of a day when only one CPU or GPU controlled the entire system and the other option was not there anymore? Recently, I have

This thought came to mind when I was thinking about the recent court case between Intel and NVidia, fighting over licensing rights to develop chipsets compatible with Core i7 Nehalem processors. Intel is the powerhouse of processors and NVidia is a great GPU competitor against ATI.

Now, years and years ago, when computers were still at lower levels and Intel was competing against AMD’s stronghold with its new Pentium processors, there wasn’t much integration; the memory controllers were in a separate location on the motherboard, memory was still controlled via the memory controller, there was only DDR memory, and the GPU was in a separate location, receiving commands from the CPU. Initially, a computer could not function without a CPU or a GPU; the computer had to have both. You would definitely need a CPU to send commands to other components through the motherboard to make the computer work, and you would need a GPU to have a screen to look at.

As developers and manufacturers came up with new and better computer hardware at an alarming rate, things started to come together; AMD went on to be the first to include the onboard memory controller in its CPUs, NVidia settled in and began creating its own GPUs, Intel began development of the Core2 series, and motherboard chipsets became more and more advanced. so that the CPUs be able to process and send commands and data to the components of the computers more quickly. CPUs and GPUs developed side by side, and both were gradually becoming much more powerful and efficient.

And now, here we are today, with Core i7 Nehalmen processors, ATI’s popular 4870 X2 and NVidia’s GTX 295 GPUs, one with 2 GPUs on one graphics card and the latest with a powerful GPU. Intel now includes its memory controller built into the CPU itself, and there are now motherboards with integrated GPUs powerful enough to produce a good display on monitors. Everything is integrating.