Will GRAPHENE immensely boost gaming performance?

[Ricirich]

Hi geeks!
in case you don't know:

Graphene is an allotrope of carbon in the form of a single layer of atoms in a two-dimensional hexagonal lattice in which one atom forms each vertex. It is the basic structural element of other allotropes, including graphite, charcoal, carbon nanotubes and fullerenes. It can also be considered as an indefinitely large aromatic molecule, the ultimate case of the family of flat polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.

Graphene has a special set of properties which set it apart from other allotropes of carbon. In relation to its thickness, it is about 100 times stronger than the strongest steel. Yet its density is dramatically lower than any steel, with a surfacic mass of 0.763 mg per square meter. It conducts heat and electricity very efficiently and is nearly transparent. Graphene also shows a large and nonlinear diamagnetism. even greater than graphite, and can be levitated by Nd-Fe-B magnets. Researchers have identified the bipolar transistor effect, ballistic transport of charges and large quantum oscillations in the material.

Scientists have theorized about graphene for decades. It has likely been unknowingly produced in small quantities for centuries, through the use of pencils and other similar applications of graphite. It was originally observed in electron microscopes in 1962, but only studied while supported on metal surfaces. The material was later rediscovered, isolated and characterized in 2004 by Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov at the University of Manchester. Research was informed by existing theoretical descriptions of its composition, structure and properties. High-quality graphene proved to be surprisingly easy to isolate, making more research possible. This work resulted in the two winning the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2010 "for groundbreaking experiments regarding the two-dimensional material graphene."

The global market for graphene was $9 million in 2012, with most of the demand from research and development in semiconductor, electronics, battery energy and composites, and is expected to reach $151.4 million by 2021.
- From Wikipedia.

Reading from various websites, it seems that if this material gets applied for transistors in computers, the CPU performances might increase by 1000 times. If this is even roughly true we could play a real life graphic at 240 fps in 8k
In addition to that, it will need much less energy to work, so less heating and smaller computers.


Transistors act as on and off switches. A series of transistors in different arrangements act as logic gates, allowing microprocessors to solve complex arithmetic and logic problems. But the speed of computer microprocessors that rely on silicon transistors has been relatively stagnant for years, with clock speeds mostly in the 3 to 4 gigahertz range.

A cascading series of graphene transistor-based logic circuits could produce a massive jump, with clock speeds approaching the terahertz range -- a thousand times faster.
- from sciencedaily.com

I don't know much as it seems there are not interesting news around... all it appears is that the production process is pretty hard at the moment and there are also studies about possible health-risks implications.

Your opinions? Is this a wonder material that might open a new era in technology or is it just fantasy?

[Temp name]

Probably not. At least not in the next 10+ years.

You'd need to entirely change microarchitectures from anything in use today, so we'd need to port over every single x86 program to run on the new architectures, which.. Yeah, not likely.


Also:

Reading from various websites, it seems that if this material gets applied for transistors in computers, the CPU performances might increase by 1000 times. If this is even roughly true we could play a real life graphic at 240 fps in 8k

That's a GPU bottleneck, not a CPU one. You could get 10 billion times more powerful CPUs, and you still wouldn't get near 8k240hz

[Lollis]

Probably not. At least not in the next 10+ years.

You'd need to entirely change microarchitectures from anything in use today, so we'd need to port over every single x86 program to run on the new architectures, which.. Yeah, not likely.


Also:
That's a GPU bottleneck, not a CPU one. You could get 10 billion times more powerful CPUs, and you still wouldn't get near 8k240hz

It's also important to remember that graphene is still super expensive. One of the techniques to produce it basically involves using tape to pull the graphene particles up from the substrate.

So while graphene might be a fantastic material to use, nobody is going to be using it in the near future for gaming. It's going to be professional use only for quite a while (when graphene stuff actually starts to hit the market) simply because of how expensive it is.

[Greengrim]

Read first two posts, understood nothing, wish you guys a wonderful life...