Video cards should really be called a Graphics sub-system. They are a complete computer contained on one card and have 256-bit memory buses that literally, clock for clock, are double the width of a 128-bit dual channel memory architecture of an A64 PC. Also, these memory chips run far faster than even the high performance DDR2 modules available today. Some GDDR3 modules can run in excess of 11-1200 MHZ and video cards are always getting the fastest RAM chips first before they hit the PC DIMM market. I wouldn't be surprised if the on-die memory controller of an A64 CPU was inspired by today's GPU's. Everything about a video card's design is geared towards high bandwidth and output which will always generate more heat.

I'm not surprised that video cards generate massive amounts of heat for thier size because they are actually a complete, self-contained, high performance computer specificaly designed to push huge amounts of data in real-time and all of this is crammed within the space of a few square inches.

In the future, I picture a mainboard that has two sockets, physically close together sharing an ultra-wide memory bus, plus a direct, low latency connection with each other. One socket will be designed for a longer pipelineed(x86-64, etc) general purpose processor(CPU) that is used for the OS, general apps, etc. while another socket is for a graphics processor(GPU). Both CPU & GPU can be upgarded, as well as the RAM and the mainboard will be the glue that ties it all together, so to speak. They will share a memory sub-system that is interconnected to provide a 512+ bit memory interface for each and much more configurable through software and BIOS settings. That way, the CPU & GPU can share a low latency, direct connection to each as well as the memory sub-system. This would increase future perfomance, resolve power consumption & delivery issues for more powerful graphics systems and reduce the overall complexity over a card and slot design that will eventually hit a design limit, as it is. This design will also simplify or completely eliminate the need for a mainboard chipset as we now know it.

What's your thoughts on this?? =)

ok the CPU has many Complex Instructions, a Vid card has a description design-to just render graphics onscreen, nothing else-also simple instructions, i also think that the VPU is a Risc based Processor, while CPUs are CISC.