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NVIDIA Predicts 570x GPU Performance Boost

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the lets-talk-about-diminishing-returns dept.

Gianna Borgnine writes "NVIDIA is predicting that GPU performance is going to increase a whopping 570-fold in the next six years. According to TG Daily, NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang made the prediction at this year's Hot Chips symposium. Huang claimed that while the performance of GPU silicon is heading for a monumental increase in the next six years — making it 570 times faster than the products available today — CPU technology will find itself lagging behind, increasing to a mere 3 times current performance levels. 'Huang also discussed a number of "real-world" GPU applications, including energy exploration, interactive ray tracing and CGI simulations.'"

3 of 295 comments (clear)

  1. In other news... by Hadlock · · Score: 5, Informative

    In other news, ATI is selling their 4870 series cards for $130 on newegg, which are twice as fast as an Nvidia 9800GTS which is the same price (at least on Left 4 Dead, Call of Duty, and any other game that matters). ATI is blowing Nvidia out of the water in terms of performance per dollar and will continue to do so through at least the middle of next year. See here:

    http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/gaming-graphics-cards-charts-2009-high-quality/benchmarks,62.html

    Yeah, I'd be making outrageous statements too if I were Nvidia.

    --
    moox. for a new generation.
  2. Re:Predictions of the future by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    The prediction is complete nonsense. It assumes that CPU processors only get 20% faster per year (compounded). That would only be true if they did not add more cores to the CPU. And finally GPUs are hitting the same thermal/power leakage wall that CPUs hit several years ago - they will at best get faster in lock step with CPUs.

    A GPU is not a general purpose processor, as is a CPU. It is only good at performing a large number of repetitive single precision (32 bit) floating point calculations without branching. Double precision (64 bit) calculations - double in C speak - is 4 times slower than single precision on a GPU. And the second you have an "if" in GPU code, everything grinds to a halt. Conditions effectively break the GPU SIMD (single instruction multiple data) model and bring the pipeline to a halt.

  3. Re:% VS Times by glwtta · · Score: 5, Informative

    For the rest of us of course 570% increase is 5.7X faster.

    It seems the rest of us don't understand what a "percent increase" means, either.

    (hint: 570% increase == 6.7X)

    --
    sic transit gloria mundi