AMD to pair CPUs, GPUs with Intel's physics tech

AMD is partnering with Intel to improve the way its graphics chips can handle physics and other scientific calculations.
Well, sort of. AMD's actually working with Intel subsidiary Havok,which the chip giant acquired last year. Havok operates separately fromIntel to develop its Havok FX physics processing API, which allowsdevelopers to code up such algorithms to run on GPUs rather than CPUs.
It's main rival was Ageia, developer of a similar API and adedicated chip, PhysX, to run the calculations. Ageia, however, is nowpart of Nvidia, which is understandably playing down PhysX whilepromoting Ageia's software technology as a way of running physicscalculations on its own GPUs.

All this stuff is going to run on discrete graphics chips, so itmakes more sense for AMD to partner with an Intel company, which isn'tcompeting with it - yet - in the discrete GPU market.
The partnership will ensure that Havok FX can take full advantage ofthe idiosyncracies of AMD's Radeon GPU architecture and of its x86processors.
Games, in particular, are increasingly incorporating algorithms thatcan model complex interactions between players and the worlds theyinhabit. Traditionally, these calculations have been handled by theCPU, but they're better suited to the GPU's parallel-processing design,which whizzes through them while the general-purpose CPU wouldstruggle.