What?!!

zimmie said:

kirsch said:

On a more technical level, the Afterburner is a card with a Field Programmable Gate Array (FGPA), or a programmable Application-Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC). This effectively means it is a card that has chips created for a specific task, rather than a general-usage chip.

An FPGA is exactly the opposite of chips created for a specific task. It is a chip that can be configured to do a specific task. The "Programmable Application-Specific" is an oxymoron. The way FPGAs work, an image is loaded onto them which reconigures the gates on the chip in order to do something specific. The image can be updated or changed completely by the vendor (Apple) after the card has shipped and is sitting on the customer's computer. They would do this to add new codecs, fix bugs, improve performance, etc.

It makes sense for Apple to use an FPGA for this and not an ASIC, which would be cost-prohibitive at the volumes this is likely to sell at.

I wouldn't quite call an FPGA the opposite of a chip created for a specific task. Sure, the silicon wasn't etched for just the one task, but a blank FPGA doesn't do anything useful. Once configured, it has been created for a specific task (modulo RISC-V and the like). It can be reconfigured later, but that makes it no longer suitable for the original task.

I also don't think an ASIC run would be cost-prohibitive. They don't need to use the smallest process, so they can shop around for fabs. Last time I priced a run, it was about $100k setup (as long as you provide the Verilog), some small amount per wafer, then some larger amount per chip depending on the packaging technology you want. A low-run ASIC should be well under $100 each for 10k units.

Based on your comment, I have a very hard time  believing you do any work with FPGAs or ASICs. Im impressed you dropped Verilog in there so you do know something about it so ill try not to be an ass (i know, already failed there).  I am purely a hobbyist but i meed to clear up this real lack of fact going on here. 

ASIC != FPGA ever. Literally opposite as Kirsch said. Im glad him and macinfish made that point for me but ill explain and maybe the article will correct some of its GLARING ERRORS. FPGA is field programmable as they say, and zimmie pay attention, they can be updated with new versions of the code (verilog etc...) and still Do they old job using the new configuration of the gates. Sorry zimmie I know you know probably more than me but your wording is misleading. 

Heres where the article is wrong and nobody has pointed it out. ASIC is application specific hardware. Literally the hardware has been designed and baked into the silicon and there is no changing the configuration. The benefits are that these get actually faster than FPGAs and more efficient. Mostly more efficient as there is nothing extraneous on board. It does what it is supposed to and that is it. An fpga may be used to make the general processor in one design but a dedicated hardware processor will always be better in every way except the ability to reconfigure it.