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Nvidia Discloses Details On Next-Gen Fermi GPU

Posted by samzenpus on from the getting-the-skinny dept.

EconolineCrush writes "The Tech Report has published the first details describing the architecture behind Nvidia's upcoming Fermi GPU. More than just a graphics processor, Fermi incorporates many enhancements targeted specifically at general-purpose computing, such as better support for double-precision math, improved internal scheduling and switching, and more robust tools for developers. Plus, you know, more cores. Some questions about the chip remain unanswered, but it's not expected to arrive until later this year or early next."

15 of 175 comments (clear)

  1. But does it... by popo · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ... run Linux?

    --
    ------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
    1. Re:But does it... by skarhand · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You could have read the link... Theoretically, you could use an ATI card for graphics and a second Nvidia card just for the physx. Well, not anymore. Nvidia disabled that possibility in the driver. So people with older Nvidia cards who choose to upgrade to the newest radeon 5800 series will lose physx. That kind of business practices remind me of a certain company from Redmond...

    2. Re:But does it... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Some motherboards have more than one PCI Express slot. Some even come with GPUs built onto the motherboard. In either case, it is entirely conceivable that there may be a GPU present other than the one attached to the display. Then there's the Hydra 200 (look on Anandtech, I'm too lazy to find the link) - a chipset which evenly distributes processing power among multiple GPUs from any vendor to render a scene or do GPGPU computing.

      Nvidia just released new drivers which explicitly disable PhysX acceleration in the presence of a GPU from another manufacturer. For the above stated reasons, this is evil.

    3. Re:But does it... by Dishevel · · Score: 5, Funny

      Now you have done it. Don't you know enough not to wake the fanboys. Now I am gonna have to hear how Jobs is a genius for not allowing people to do things that he believes unimportant with their hardware. That nobody actually needs any more control than Steve gives them. It's not that I agree with them. I just do not want to hear it. Please just let them have their fanboy dreams in peace. Please!

      --
      Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
  2. Re:AWESOME by ArchMageZeratuL · · Score: 5, Insightful

    To the best of my knowledge, double-precision floating point operations are actually pretty important for some scientific applications of GPUs, and as such this is significant for those using GPUs as supercomputers.

  3. Re:Honestly, at this point... by Shikaku · · Score: 3, Funny

    Yes.

  4. How did this get modded "insightful"? by Joce640k · · Score: 3, Interesting

    "Ignorant" would be a better rating - there's a lot of compute power but it's in the middle of a very different architecture to an x86 CPU. Not usable for running an OS.

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    No sig today...
  5. Games before hardware by DigiShaman · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Back in the day up till the year 2000, I used to upgrade my PC four times a year. The point was to always improve multi-tasking and obtain faster frame rates with higher detail in games that I already have. Since then however, the hardware has always been "good enough" for general computing and playing even the latest/popular games. The only time I'm compelled to upgrade my computer (mainly the video card) is if there's a game out that I love.

    Honestly, the only game I'm looking forward to is Diablo3. Even then, my nVidia 8800GT card should be more than sufficient. If not, it would be games like these that will send me over to Newegg to make a purchase. Given the lack of games compounded with hardware that's already decent in the market, I'm willing to bet it's got Intel, AMD, and nVidia scared. Who really wants/need bleeding edge technology anymore? Am I wrong thinking the desire for better video card technology has plateaued in the last few years?

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    Life is not for the lazy.
    1. Re:Games before hardware by jpmorgan · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Notice the features being marketed: concurrent CUDA kernels, high performance IEEE double-precision floating point performance, multi-level caching and expanded shared memory, high performance atomic global memory operations. NVIDIA doesn't care about you anymore. Excepting a small hardcore, gamers are either playing graphically trivial MMOs (*cough*WoW*cough*) or have moved to consoles.

      They won't want to sell you this chip for a hundred bucks, they want to sell it to the HPC world for a couple thousand bucks (or more... some of NVIDIA's current Tesla products are 5 figures). The only gamers they're really interested in these days are on mobile platforms, using Tegra.

    2. Re:Games before hardware by Pulzar · · Score: 5, Interesting

      People have been saying that forever now. I think only the first 2 generations of 3D cards were greeted by universal enthusiasm, while everything else since had a number of "who needs that power to run game X" crowd. The truth is, yes, you can run a lot of games with old cards, but you can run them better with newer cards. So, it's just a matter of preference when it comes to the usual gaming.

      AMD/ATI is at least doing something fun with all this new power. Since you can run the latest games in 5400x2000 resolutions with high frame rate, why not hook up three monitors to one Radeon 58xx card and play it like this? That wasn't something you could do with an older card.

      Similarly, using some of the new video converter apps that make use of a GPU can cut down transcoding from many hours to one hour or less... you can convert your blu-ray movie to a portable video format much easier and quicker. Again, something you couldn't do with an old card, and something that was only somewhat useful in previous generation.

      In summary, I think the *need* for more power is less pressing than it used to, but there's still more and more you can do with new cards.

      --
      Never underestimate the bandwidth of a 747 filled with CD-ROMs.
    3. Re:Games before hardware by Heir+Of+The+Mess · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Since then however, the hardware has always been "good enough"

      That's because most games are now being written for consoles and then being ported to PC, so the graphics requirements are based on what's in an X-Box 360. Unfortunately consoles are on something like a 5 year cycle. People are now buying a game console + a cheap PC for their other stuff for cheaper than the ol gaming rig. Makes sense in a way.

      --
      Australian running a company that does C# / C++ / Java / SQL / Python / Mathematica
    4. Re:Games before hardware by PC+and+Sony+Fanboy · · Score: 3, Funny

      Young coders are too lazy and brainwashed by MS and Sony to think anymore. You finally have the bandwidth and cpu and gpu to do something and your stuck dreaming at 640p. Hack the cards with Linux and dream big. Take computing back from the DRM, locked down junk MS and Sony code down to. You have the OS, now get some graphics freedom too.

      I hope you don't contribute to the trunk, your code is 2x as long as it should be, and only half as effective!

  6. Another article here by Vigile · · Score: 3, Informative

    http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=789

    Just for a second glance.

  7. More than just graphics by mathimus1863 · · Score: 5, Informative

    I work at a physics lab, and demand for these newer NVIDIA cards are exploding due to general-purpose GPU programming. With a little bit of creativity and experience, many computational problems can be parallelized, and then run on the multiple GPU cores with fantastic speedup. In our case, we got a simulation from 2s/frame to 12ms/frame. It's not trivial though, and the guy in our group who got good at it... he found himself on 7 different projects simultaneously as everyone was craving this technology. He eventually left b/c of the stress. Now everyone and their mother either wants to learn how to do GPGPU, or recruit someone who does. This is why I bought NVIDIA stock (and they have doubled since I bought it).

    But this technology isn't straightforward. Someone asked why not replace your CPU with it? Well for one, GPUs didn't use to be able to do ANY floating or double-precision calculations. You couldn't even program calculations directly -- you had to figure out how to represent your problem as texel- and polygon-operations so that you could trick your GPU into doing non-GPU calculations for you. With each new card released, NVIDIA is making strides to accommodate those who want GPGPU, and for everyone I know those advances couldn't come fast enough.

  8. Re:AWESOME by jpmorgan · · Score: 4, Informative

    GTX 280 is a graphics card. The GT200 is the GPU core the GTX 280 card is based on. Likewise the 8800 series graphics cards were based on the G80 chip (and later G92, I think). There were also the G84, G86, G94 that power a number of nvidia's economy or mobile platforms. The Quadro 5600 and 4600 are also G80 based. There were other, cheaper Quadros based on the G84. The Quadro 5800 is based on the GT200 chip. The Tesla 870s were based on G80s, the 1070s are based on GT200. The cards also tend to have different memory interfaces (and amounts), clock rates and even firmware, which is why there are many different cards all based on the same handful of chips.

    So no, I do mean the GT200. The GT200 processor supports double-precision, the G8x and G9x processors do not.