What If A Northbridge Was Built Into A Graphics Card...

[shinesun]

think of the endless possibilities...

1.higher than ever refresh rates

2.faster memory processing if built-in northbridge were also linked to RAM with an external data bus.

3.the AGP slot could be positioned anywhere on the board (limitations apply) since the built-in northbridge would eliminate the need to share a common transfer with the expansion buses.

4.Dual-Core Processor function would be optimized with two seperate northbridges (one in the card), the other still positioned next to the expansion slots.

5.the card should then accomodate speeds that rival that of the motherboard itself, since with the total data transfer speed of the card consists of the GPU and the northbridge.

I am hoping to research more on the possibilities and to try to come out with something realistic.

 

[kitty500cat]

The way I understand it, the northbridge is essential since it kind of bridges the gap between the graphics card and the CPU, and the northbridge also manages other stuff like PCI slots and perhaps some of the motherboard's ports as well.

So if the northbridge were located on the graphics card, it would need only to be an AGP/PCIe controller, and it would need to tie into the existing system, and you'd still need a northbridge on the mobo to manage PCI slots and some of the other stuff a northbridge does.

It's a cool idea though, since you wouldn't have to worry about your motherboard's chipset slowing the graphics card down.