AMD Banks On Flood of Stream Apps

Slatterz writes "Closely integrating GPU and CPU systems was one of the motivations for AMD's $5.4bn acquisition of ATI in 2006. Now AMD is looking to expand its Stream project, which uses graphics chip processing cores to perform computing tasks normally sent to the CPU, a process known as General Purpose computing on Graphics Processing Units (GPGPU). By leveraging thousands of processing cores on a graphics card for general computing calculations, tasks such as scientific simulations or geographic modelling, which are traditionally the realm of supercomputers, can be performed on smaller, more affordable systems. AMD will release a new driver for its Radeon series on 10 December which will extend Stream capabilities to consumer cards." Reader Vigile adds: "While third-party consumer applications from CyberLink and ArcSoft are due in Q1 2009, in early December AMD will release a new Catalyst driver that opens up stream computing on all 4000-series parts and a new Avivo Video Converter application that promises to drastically increase transcoding speeds. AMD also has partnered with Aprius to build 8-GPU stream computing servers to compete with NVIDIA's Tesla brand."

Comments

Re:Useless without free drivers!

[Cassius Corodes]

We're not talking about video games here. Some people use computers for important work, not just for screwing around.

How dare ye!

And someday

[coryking]

Lord only knows what kinds of boobie traps they put in power supplies. The CIA and the NFL probably know more about you then you realize thanks to that "120V power supply" on the back of each computer in Google's data center. I mean, unless you have the schematics, how do you really know what it is doing?

You dont. Neither does Google. The wise are already beginning to short GOOG. Will their shareholders wake up and demand schematics? Only time will tell.

Arcsoft

[Toll_Free]

Is this the same arcsoft that gave us .arc back in the 80s?

If so, I'd like to get rarsoft involved. Any idea how long it takes my P233 machine to unrar a .264 video? I mean, like HOURS.

Imagine if I could harness my video card, an S3Virge.... holy bat, crapman, I'd probably cut my derar times by what, a third?

--Toll_Free

Re:What they might have been waiting for

[zippthorne]

Precisely. The Democrats would never tinker with computing hardware or software (like trying to force everyone to use the same, weak, encryption algorithm AND turn over their keys to the government) like the Republicans would.

Sarah Palin?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that you?

"deadly and vaporware" acronym

[NotQuiteReal]

deadly and vaporware is more commonly known as sbd. Everyone knows that.