AMD has had enough of sitting on the sidelines, at least when it comes to GPUs in the mainstream server market. So come 2012, the No. 2 chip maker says it plans to put a bigger focus on integrating graphics processor cores into this market segment.
The idea of combining graphics processors and CPUs in servers is one that’s going to catch on in a big way, believes Gina Longoria, director of the product management and workstation division at AMD. According to Longoria, the company could end up providing CPUs and GPUs together in a server to run highly parallel applications.
"As GPU becomes more relevant, that’s a better way of getting performance than [CPU] cores," Longoria said.
Even with this recognition and goal to push CPU-GPU use in mainstream servers, at least one analyst thinks AMD could be doing more.
"I’m glad they are addressing the market, but perhaps they should push ahead and develop the market more," said Dan Olds, principal analyst at Gabriel Consulting Group. " Olds went on to point out how Nvidia aggressively pushes its software and hardware for heterogenous computing, while AMD has so far been content to remain more of a spectator.
