Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

AMD RV790 Architecture To Change GPGPU Landscape?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the continuing-the-leapfrog-process dept.

Vigile writes "To many observers, the success of the GPGPU landscape has really been pushed by NVIDIA and its line of Tesla and Quadro GPUs. While ATI was the first to offer support for consumer applications like Folding@Home, NVIDIA has since taken command of the market with its CUDA architecture and programs like Badaboom and others for the HPC world. PC Perspective has speculation that points to ATI addressing the shortcomings of its lineup with a revised GPU known as RV790 that would both dramatically increase gaming performance as well as more than triple the compute power on double precision floating point operations — one of the keys to HPC acceptance."

11 of 102 comments (clear)

  1. Re:OpenCL? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    since OpenCL is just an abstraction layer like OpenGL and DirectX most modern hardware already does it just needs driver support

  2. GPGPU= General Purpose GPU by frith01 · · Score: 5, Informative

    General Purpose GPU's = massively parallel flops operations possible. ( Think matrix math, real time sims, lab testing, SETI, etc).

    Still separate from a CPU, which has additional capabilities.

    For the older folks, think of this as a math co-processor :) [ with it's own fan]

    1. Re:GPGPU= General Purpose GPU by PopeRatzo · · Score: 2, Informative

      Think matrix math, real time sims, lab testing, SETI, etc

      My wife told me to add "fluid dynamics!"

      (note: I often read slashdot comments aloud to her, and sometimes she throws back replies that I dutifully pass along)

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
  3. Re:OpenCL? by LWATCDR · · Score: 3, Informative

    I say HUH?
    OpenCL is supported by Apple but also AMD and nVidia. The standard is being managed by a Not For Profit.
    Compared to CUDA it is actually very open.
    It is currently vapor ware but everything starts out that way for the most part.

    OpenCL is more Closed BS than is CUDA or DX.
    I just hope that it actually becomes a working standard.

    --
    See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
  4. Re:Well, I hope they hurry up... by Tweenk · · Score: 2, Informative

    CUDA = an Nvidia-specific way to do GPGPU...

    Personally I'm waiting for OpenCL, which would be to GPGPU what OpenGL was for 3D graphics when it was released - essentially a vendor and platform neutral general processing interface to the GPU.

    --
    Those who would give up liberty to obtain working drivers, deserve neither liberty nor working drivers.
  5. Re:nVidia rules by i.of.the.storm · · Score: 5, Informative

    It's sad that this is actually almost true... Geforce 8800GT->9800GT->GT2x0 (I think 250 or something) are all the same GPU...

    --
    All your base are belong to Wii.
  6. also, seems to be guessing at the wrong thing by Trepidity · · Score: 2, Informative

    AMD's double-point floating point performance is already great. What they lack is the rest of it. The programming model is pretty bad compared to CUDA (nobody is using Brook+), and they seem to be basically waiting for OpenCL to fix that. The bottlenecks in most attempts to use AMD chips for GPGPU code are also not really the floating-point units themselves, but the rest of the architecture; it's hard to keep the ALUs fed with your data without a magic compiler, a better programming model, a better architecture, or some combination of those.

    --
    10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
  7. Re:ATI or AMD? by Sinning · · Score: 1, Informative

    yes

  8. Re:nVidia rules by StarHeart · · Score: 2, Informative

    No, they are all of the same base architecture, but aren't the same card. The 8800GT and the 9800GT are pretty close. Probably the biggest difference is some 9800GT cards are 55nm chips instead of 65nm. On the other hand there is a lot of difference between 8800GT and the GTX260. The GTX260 has 32 dedicated double precision processors that the 8800GT does not. My rough understanding is that those double precision processors are roughly equal to 1.5x a Q6600(quad core), or 6 cores. The GTX260 also comes with more streaming(single precision) processors. The 8800GT is 96/112 and the GTX260 is 192/216, depending on model.

    Just look at this graphic.

    http://pyrit.googlecode.com/svn/tags/opt/pyritperfaa3.png

    --
    Havoc Penington, the bane of my Linux desktop.
  9. Re:nVidia rules by kirillian · · Score: 2, Informative

    Yes, the GTX260 is a different card...but the 250 is an improvement of the die-shrink of the original 8800 GTS/9800 GTX - 9800GTX+. ...takes 20 seconds to find an article for reference... http://techreport.com/articles.x/16504 The card is actually a little different, but the gpu architecture is the same...in fact...the gpu is just a re-branded chip of the same fab line as the 9800GTX...

  10. Re:nVidia rules by i.of.the.storm · · Score: 2, Informative

    They aren't the same card, but the 9800GT is only different from the 8800GT in adding triple SLI support. Some later 9800GTs are a die shrink but the original card was not. And I said GT250, not 260. The 250 is a rebranded 9800GTX+, although I thought it was a 9800GT. See http://www.maximumpc.com/article/news/nvidia_geforce_250_rebranding_complete and http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=14656&page=2

    --
    All your base are belong to Wii.