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Comment by mjsweet | Hacker News Reader

Please shoot me down in flames if needed, but maybe the CPU should be on a riser board and the GPU on the mainboard? Look, it seems to me that Nvidia needs to come up with its own x86 reference platform that revolves around supplying enough resources to the GPU rather than relying on adding layer upon layer of bandaid solutions. Listen, I'm not an engineer, and I don't claim to understand voltage, amps and watts, but it seems plainly obvious that if Nvidia wants to keep pushing discreet components that need a lot of juice (as opposed to Apples SoC strategy), then they need to come up with their own robust reference platform.

On another note, did EVGA see all this coming?

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I was looking at an old video card I have, the GeForce 4600ti, and remembering thinking it was _huge_ at the time compared to my Voodoo 3 3000 before it. Then the 8800gt seemed huge. Then the RX480. Then my current 3070.

At a certain point it's just stupid. My work laptop (Macbook Pro M1 Max) can do some very impressive stuff in such a small quiet package, and it just makes sense to go with a single large APU in the future.

I know what you are saying, I have an M1 Pro MBP, and the thing is as quiet as a church mouse.

It just seems to me like Apple (with the trashcan) painted themselves into a corner with thermals. Then Intel did the same by missing node generations and are just pumping more current (or voltage, heck I don't get electricity). Now Nvidia is doing the same now with an aging reference platform that needs an overhaul.

I feel that it's simplistic to say that Apple has the right strategy with APU's, because gamers want faster and faster gaming performance whereas Apple are making custom silicon for very narrow use cases (namely video editing) and consumers perusing the internet and organising photos.

Funnily enough, I do think that Apple have the right formula longer term for general purpose computing with APU's.

It just that if Nvidia want to keep pumping out bigger and bigger GPU's while upping the voltage and heat then things need to change.

The x86 platform needs a page one rewrite.

EVGA opted out.

With how often this happens, I guess it really is impossible for Apple users to not act like their device is what everyone needs.

they've had their own format (SXM) for more than 5 years. it's the consumer market you can't control as much.

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