WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.520 There's nothing like unboxing a shiny new graphics card, but they're just so bulky. 00:00:05.520 --> 00:00:10.760 Why is it that we can't just buy the GPU by itself and slot it directly onto our motherboard, 00:00:10.760 --> 00:00:16.480 like we do for CPUs? It turns out there are a lot of reasons that it's just not that simple, and a big one 00:00:16.480 --> 00:00:23.160 is power. You see, a mid-to-high-end discrete GPU draws lots of power to the point where it's typically 00:00:23.160 --> 00:00:26.680 the single most power-hungry component in your system. 00:00:26.680 --> 00:00:31.320 And you can see this if you look at a graphics card with the cooler removed. 00:00:31.320 --> 00:00:35.340 Many of those little components that you see all over the board are dedicated to power 00:00:35.340 --> 00:00:40.160 delivery and voltage regulation, which is part of the reason that graphics cards tend 00:00:40.160 --> 00:00:46.800 to be quite large. Putting these components onto the motherboard would not only make it larger, but also significantly 00:00:46.800 --> 00:00:50.800 more expensive. But that's far from the only logistical concern. 00:00:50.800 --> 00:00:58.440 Another big one is memory. You see, although integrated graphics can share your system's standard DDR RAM, and 00:00:58.440 --> 00:01:04.280 some lower-end discrete GPUs actually use dedicated but still run-of-the-mill DDR, mid 00:01:04.280 --> 00:01:10.640 and higher-range options use special video RAM called GDDR, with the G being for graphics. 00:01:10.640 --> 00:01:16.240 GDDR is higher bandwidth because it's designed to handle large chunks of data, such as the 00:01:16.240 --> 00:01:20.960 visual assets and textures that your GPU is continually asking for. 00:01:20.960 --> 00:01:26.440 By contrast, normal DDR is better at handling smaller pieces of data, so it doesn't have 00:01:26.440 --> 00:01:29.920 as much bandwidth, but its latency is lower. 00:01:29.920 --> 00:01:34.960 This means that if you were to put a relatively powerful GPU directly onto a motherboard, 00:01:34.960 --> 00:01:40.520 you would also need to build in dedicated GDDR memory, which would, you guessed it, 00:01:40.520 --> 00:01:43.840 make the motherboard even bigger and even more expensive. 00:01:43.840 --> 00:01:48.840 Now, hypothetically, you could design this video memory or VRAM to be slotted in rather 00:01:48.840 --> 00:01:54.160 than soldered directly to the graphics card, but this actually has the possibility of increasing 00:01:54.160 --> 00:01:59.040 the rate of data errors, which is a big part of the reason that all modern graphics cards 00:01:59.040 --> 00:02:06.080 use soldered-on VRAM. Another huge hurdle to having a GPU socket on your motherboard is the socket itself. 00:02:06.080 --> 00:02:11.040 You know how AMD and Intel CPUs use completely different socket designs? 00:02:11.040 --> 00:02:16.200 And even within AMD or within Intel, you end up having to upgrade your motherboard ever 00:02:16.200 --> 00:02:19.360 so often when they decide to change the pin layout? 00:02:19.360 --> 00:02:24.920 Well, you would have the same problem with a GPU socket, but arguably worse, as there 00:02:24.920 --> 00:02:31.400 are now three discrete GPU manufacturers with Intel entering the fray, and GPU architectures 00:02:31.400 --> 00:02:36.600 tend to be updated more frequently and more dramatically than on the CPU side, meaning 00:02:36.600 --> 00:02:40.760 that motherboards would go out of date much more quickly, not to mention that you'd be 00:02:40.760 --> 00:02:47.000 locked into one CPU vendor and one GPU vendor every time you bought a new one. 00:02:47.000 --> 00:02:52.240 None of this even mentions that all those different GPUs would necessitate different 00:02:52.240 --> 00:02:55.360 amounts of power delivery and VRAM. 00:02:55.360 --> 00:03:00.320 So you'd either have the problem where you'd need a stupidly huge lineup of different motherboards 00:03:00.320 --> 00:03:04.760 from every manufacturer to accommodate all these different variations, or you'd have 00:03:04.760 --> 00:03:09.800 to over-engineer every motherboard with enough power and memory to support the entire GPU 00:03:09.840 --> 00:03:14.080 stack, which might put you in a position where you'd have to consider selling organs for 00:03:14.080 --> 00:03:19.680 a motherboard. Finally, there's the reality that although graphics cards are hot commodities with gamers, 00:03:19.680 --> 00:03:24.400 there are many more people out there that don't need a powerful GPU, meaning that motherboards 00:03:24.400 --> 00:03:28.880 with GPU sockets on them would be relegated to a very niche market due to how expensive 00:03:28.880 --> 00:03:32.880 they'd be, giving manufacturers even less of an incentive to make them. 00:03:32.880 --> 00:03:36.520 So for the time being, if you want a GPU on your motherboard, it's probably only going 00:03:36.520 --> 00:03:39.820 to happen in a laptop or other specialized device. 00:03:39.820 --> 00:03:43.760 On the desktop, it's just so much cheaper and easier for them to continue doing what 00:03:43.760 --> 00:03:49.440 they've been doing, slotting them into universally compatible, inexpensive PCI Express slots. 00:03:49.440 --> 00:03:53.960 And besides, do you really want to strap another cooler to your motherboard? 00:03:53.960 --> 00:03:56.960 What you really want to do is subscribe. Yes, the video's over. 00:03:56.960 --> 00:03:57.460 Bye-bye.