AMD plans to integrate graphics processors into mainstream servers

AMD will focus more on integrating the graphics processor kernel into mainstream servers from 2012 onwards as AMD strives to improve system performance, the February 7 News said. The future mainstream server will integrate the graphics processor and the CPU in the server as the application uses thousands of graphics processor cores, says Gina Longoria, manager of AMD's product management and workstation department.　　AMD may be working with a single server to provide the central processor and graphics processor to run parallel applications. Graphics cards are thought to be more advanced than CPU in processing scientific and arithmetic applications. The CPU is designed to handle common computing tasks.　　Some servers have combined graphics processors with CPU performance in high-performance computing environments. For example, the HyperPower cluster products provided by the supercomputer vendor Appro separate and simultaneously execute thousands of threads and tasks on servers that separately configure the Intel processor kernel and the NVIDIA graphics processor kernel.　　A supercomputer based on the Nvidia graphics processor named Tsubame, at the Tokyo Polytechnic University, has more than 30,000 processor cores that provide 77.48 trillion floating-point operations per second. However, while most CPU and graphics processors are combined in supercomputers, many PCs also configure basic parallel computing capabilities to improve application performance. At present, the notebook computer can be video editing and other specific multimedia tasks directly to the graphics chip, so that the central processing unit can be processed word processing and virus scanning.　　Longoria says AMD hopes to bring this hybrid environment to the server in the future. In the next two years, using a graphics processor to perform computational tasks remains a relatively small area of application. As a result, AMD will focus on the CPU and add more cores. Over time, there will be closer integration. Longoria said that if the use of graphics processors for various calculations began to grow, AMD may not focus on the CPU core. AMD currently has a 16-kernel server processor code-named "Interlagos". The processor is scheduled to be launched in 2011.　　This server chip is based on a new chip architecture. With the help of graphics processors, graphics-intensive applications, including facial recognition, video and images, will improve performance on the server, Longoria said.　　However, she has no comment on whether data-intensive applications such as databases can be improved with the help of a graphics processor. Author: Tianhong