As we know, Apple Silicon currently works with its own integrated GPU cores. However, it is true that the company is investigating how to support more options, such as PCI-E GPUs, working in parallel. It is something that the Intel Macs had that now the Silicon Macs do not have and that it may be a good thing that they could have it. Being able to use the GPU in via Thunderbolt, or internally in a Mac Pro. With these new patents recently revealed appear to show that Apple is at least considering this issue.
We already know that Apple Silicon has achieved a series of impressive improvements in the Mac. Its working capacities have multiplied exponentially, but it is true that it has also abandoned a series of ways of working that are also good. For example, the ability to GPUs work in parallel providing that extra power. Something that did happen with Intel and not now. Now with these new patents you want:
- physically include space for GPU cards or connectors for external GPUs
- Determine when a task is better served by another GPU
- Being able to root the data on that GPU
- Manage how you retrieve data from the GPU
Switching between these graphics cards requires technology similar to NVidia’s older Scalable Link Interface (SLI). Apple’s new patent applications include a call “Kickslot Manager Circuitry For Graphics Processors”, which is part of achieving the same result. What is said is:
“Slot manager circuitry can store, using an input from the tracking slot circuitry, software-specified information for a set of graphics jobs. The slot manager circuit can pre-obtain, from the location and before allocating core resources».
So two or more GPU cards can work together, but that requires programming. Hence Apple’s third new patent application, “Affinity-based graphics programming”.
As always when we talk about a patent, We may never see it come true but if it is achieved, what we will have is an impressive leap in quality.
