Why can not the CPU off the motherboard?

[Mario_979]

Increasingly, the CPU takes up more space on the motherboard, as a whole - heatsink

and cooler. Why not make a separate CPU motherboard, connected by optical cables to

it, with this configuration including the CPU could be in a liquid to cool. The

motherboard would have room for more slots, more memory, and other things that the

industry would surely find out.

It's just an idea may be crazy, but I think it can be done.

 

[zergesys]

This is nifty from a cooling standpoint, but here's a problem...

The CPU is the way it because it provides the simplest most direct access to everything for what it needs to do. Taking it off the main-board and attaching it via optical connections or some kind of special NLX type setup creates problems with with way data is handled. This would require a complete architecture revamp, and frankly, I can't call it worth it. With your optical example, we're talking about an incredible amount of complex data being shot back'n'forth constantly over these two boards, and it would need bus conversions for both ends. This presents structure, coding, and latency problems, among other things.

I just can't picture the gains being worth the complications, but its a fun idea. It might work well for other resources besides the CPU, and could make use of the announced optical Firewire and LightPeak.

 

[jitpublisher]

First, I didn't realize there was a need for more slots, more memory, etc. Are you having a problem finding a motherboard with enough slots and memory for your usage?
Second, they have already done this years ago to a certain degree, with CPU's being mounted on cards that plugged into a slot on the board, remember slot A and Slot 1 and Slot 2 CPU's?

For many different reasons, as the dies shrank, and as CPU's became faster and faster, putting them back on the board was the optimal solution for performance.

While it would be neat to see something like that, engineering and technical requirements would tough to achieve a device that performed as well as having the CPU on the mainboard. But, in 10 years, the CPU's we think of today may become completely obsolete and running under a different technology all together.

 

[Mario_979]

Best answer selected by Mario_979.

 

[Mario_979]

Not really needs more memory slots, it was a mistake when I wrote. But to put video cards in SLI nVidia system, for example. The boards that I know there is only room for two video cards.

This idea came to me the need for computers gammers and / or working with producers of 3D gaming or 3D animation.

I know it is a radical change, and I also know that the industry is working on nanotechnology to assemble computers where all parts are coming and with this gain in speed, etc. ....

Apparently the communication between these two sets would be a problem, however I found that being done through fiber optics, there would be no latency, since we know the speed of light. The HD's soon to be replaced by memory SSD.

But I am not an expert, just curious, who had an idea, and decided to ask to see if it would be a good or bad.