I'm not missing the point. If you recall your computer architecture class there are many vector processing architectures out there. Long before there was nvidia the world's largest and most expensive computers were vector processors. It's inaccurate to say "gaming built SIMD".
You are missing the point - it's an economic point. Very little R&D was put into said processors. The scale wasn't there. The software stack wasn't there (because the scale wasn't there).
No one is suggesting gaming chips were the first time someone thought of such an architecture or built a chip with such an architecture. They are suggesting the gaming industry produced the required scale to actually do all the work which lead to that hardware and software being really good, and useful for other purposes. In chip world, scale matters a lot.
willis936|18 days ago
danielmarkbruce|18 days ago
No one is suggesting gaming chips were the first time someone thought of such an architecture or built a chip with such an architecture. They are suggesting the gaming industry produced the required scale to actually do all the work which lead to that hardware and software being really good, and useful for other purposes. In chip world, scale matters a lot.