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NVIDIA Ships 128-Core Graphics Card
SUMB44
Member Posts: 182
NVIDIA Ships 128-Core Graphics Cards for High-End Film Editors, Graphics Pros: Apple 'Excited'
NVIDIA just cranked up its highest-end Quadro graphics cards a notch or two, rolling out three products, the NVIDIA Quadro FX 4600, Quadro FX 5600 (pictured above), and NVIDIA Quadro Plex VCS Model IV that the company says represents the biggest leap in performance for its graphics cards yet. One giant leap indeed, because these parallel processing monsters have the rough equivalent of 128 1.35GHz processors cranking away at graphics in a whole new way.
These cards have more circuitry than ever, with three quarters of a billion transistors on board, and NVIDIA says not only can they display larger graphics faster than ever but use a concept called GP-GPU, allowing general-purpose programs to run on the GPU instead of the CPU.
Sharing some of the same technology with NVIDIA's GeForce 8 series of consumer cards released last November, these cards are aimed at high-end film effects artists and oil and gas explorers, and maybe a few absolutely fanatic gamers. More info, pics and pricing, plus a tantalizing hint from NVIDIA about Apple's interest in this technology, after the jump.
These cards have a brand-new GPU architecture on board, representing a brand new approach to graphics, where NVIDIA goes away from the pipeline model and into parallel processing.
Jeff Brown, General Manager, Professional Solutions Group at NVIDIA told us these new cards were four years in the making, and that NVIDIA spent half a billion dollars putting together this technology. He also gave us what might be a hint at what Apple has to show at NAB in April with its rumored workstations that are geared toward professional video editors and effects artists.
Said Brown, "Image processing is the fundamental algorithm set that video editing guys use, and traditionally that has been very CPU-centric, and now we're starting to see more and more image processing moving to the GPU. So folks like Adobe, Apple, Avid are excited about this concept. It gives them much, much higher levels of performance."
Expect to see those video editing giants, Adobe, Apple, and Avid, taking advantage of these graphics cards, perhaps showing systems involving the technology at the National Association of Broadcasters convention in mid-April. We'll be there to see what happens.
Meanwhile, these graphics cards aren't cheap, where the Quadro FX 4600 will retail for $1995, and the Quadro FX 5600 will run $2999. NVIDIA didn't say what its highest-end Quadro Plex VCS model IV will cost. – Charlie White
Press Release:
NEW NVIDIA QUADRO® ARCHITECTURE DELIVERS GREATEST GENERATIONAL LEAP IN COMPANY HISTORY
New Quadro Solutions Launch with Advanced Features Including: Unified Architecture, Shader Model 4.0, and GPU Computing for Visualization
SANTA CLARA, CA--MARCH 5, 2007--NVIDIA Corporation (Nasdaq: NVDA), the worldwide leader in programmable graphics processor technologies, today unveiled a new line of professional graphics solutions: NVIDIA Quadro FX 4600, Quadro FX 5600, and NVIDIA Quadro Plex VCS Model IV. Armed with the largest increase in GPU power and functionality to date, these solutions are designed to help solve the world's most complex professional graphics challenges.
Tackling the extreme visualization challenges of the automotive styling and design, oil and gas exploration, medical imaging, visual simulation and training, scientific research, and advanced visual effects industries, these new Quadro solutions offer:
Next-Generation Vertex and Pixel Programmability--Shader Model 4.0 enables a higher level of performance and ultra-realistic effects for OpenGL and DirectX 10 professional applications
Largest Frame Buffers--Up to 1.5 GB frame buffers deliver throughput needed for interactive visualization and real-time processing of large textures and frames, enabling the superior quality and resolution for full-scene antialiasing (FSAA)
New Unified Architecture--Industry-first unified architecture capable of dynamically allocating compute, geometry, shading and pixel processing power for optimized GPU performance
GPU Computing for Visualization--Featuring NVIDIA CUDA technology, developers are, for the first time, able to tap into Quadro's high-performance computing power to solve complex, visualization problems
"Today's cutting-edge gaming and film experiences are built around tremendous 3D imagery. Designing this content requires high quality real-time feedback regardless of complexity," said Bill Roberts, director of product management at Softimage Co. "NVIDIA's support of shader Model 4.0 combined with the real-time shader architecture of SOFTIMAGE|XSI allows game developers to quickly create advanced visual effects for the Microsoft Vista OS by providing the most accurate visual feedback. Also the massively scalable visual compute power provided by CUDA is what fuels modern software architectures like SOFTIMAGE|XSI and Face Robot, built on our unique Gigapolygon core, which are inherently designed to take advantage of parallel computing power."
Additional features in the new Quadro solutions include faster 3D texturing and massive 8Kx8K texture processing for better performance when zooming and panning of high-resolution images; NVIDIA® SLI™ technology for improved graphics performance; dual dual-link display connectivity; and NVIDIA® PureVideo™ technology for outstanding picture clarity, smooth video playback, and accurate color and precise image scaling for SD and HD content. NVIDIA GSync and HD SDI options are also offered.
"We bundle NVIDIA Quadro solutions with our kernel technology to accelerate simulations in the electromagnetic and energy markets," says Ryan Schneider, CTO for Acceleware Corp. "The CUDA SDK exposes an exciting new compute model that will help Acceleware to continue to make our products faster each year. This will also help our customers, including major cell phone and medical device designers, get their products to market faster, better and stronger."
NVIDIA Quadro solutions are widely available through leading OEMs such as HP, Dell, IBM, and Sun; leading workstation system integrators; and NVIDIA channel partners PNY Technologies (US and EMEA), Leadtek (APAC) and Elsa (Japan). For more information about the full lineup of NVIDIA professional solutions, please visit www.nvidia.com/quadro. The Quadro FX 4600 has a MSRP of $1995 and the Quadro FX 5600 has an MSRP of $2999.
NVIDIA Corporation
NVIDIA Corporation is the worldwide leader in programmable graphics processor technologies. The Company creates innovative, industry-changing products for computing, consumer electronics, and mobile devices. NVIDIA is headquartered in Santa Clara, CA and has offices throughout Asia, Europe, and the Americas. For more information, visit www.nvidia.com.
Comments
I love having big and bad but im not about to spend 3 grand on a video card made for industrial use. Sure it'll run all those big bad games even better but its not designed for home consumer use ... YET. When it is the technology will atleast be a reseasonable price.
This beautiful peice of hardware is for animators and other such graphics intense jobs.
Please Refer to Doom Cat with all conspiracies & evil corporation complaints. He'll give you the simple explination of..WE"RE ALL DOOMED!
No longer visiting MMORPG.com.
How much larger is it over a 8800 GTX?
ya...why would i want a card like that really.....and vanguard runs smoothly on balance settings...Geforce 7300 GT with Sempron 3200 i get 15-20 FPS even with my sound on
How much larger is it over a 8800 GTX?
Considerably bigger!
Edit: I stand corrected, it is 270x100.
No longer visiting MMORPG.com.
8800 GTX - 270mm x 100mm
So, comparatively the FX5600 isn't *that* much bigger; 42mm (1.65in) longer and 11mm (0.43in) taller. Sure, it may not fit in your mini-ITX case, but neither will the 8800 GTX. I've always been one to enjoy full towers anyway.
Edit: I see. You accidently quoted the dimensions for the MSI Radeon line. I can see how you made the mistake, as the first five cards listed were Radeons, and the sixth is the 8800 GTX.
"By the data to date, there is only one animal in the Galaxy dangerous to man, man himself. So he must supply his own indispensable competition. He has no enemy to help him." -Lazarus Long
Video and audio workstation motherboards generally have 2-3 times the traditional space between all expansin slots and significantly longer area for the cards to be placed. This is to allow better cooling without additional fans (fans create noise in video and audio upon import and export) as well as situated to fit 2-5u (standard spacing size for rack mount units) spacing cases. Basically turn a full tower on its side and lengthen the depth about 6" from the standard full tower length.
If you poke around really high end hardware codec cards, interfacing cards and timing cards you will also notice they are generally as wide as 2 standard pci/agp/pci-e cards and some as long as 16" (longest I have right now). This card is rather small compared to others in the field actually.
Video and audio workstation motherboards generally have 2-3 times the traditional space between all expansin slots and significantly longer area for the cards to be placed. This is to allow better cooling without additional fans (fans create noise in video and audio upon import and export) as well as situated to fit 2-5u (standard spacing size for rack mount units) spacing cases. Basically turn a full tower on its side and lengthen the depth about 6" from the standard full tower length.
If you poke around really high end hardware codec cards, interfacing cards and timing cards you will also notice they are generally as wide as 2 standard pci/agp/pci-e cards and some as long as 16" (longest I have right now). This card is rather small compared to others in the field actually.
Oh I'm aware of that, I did some work at the BBC on such computers. However, my original post was regarding gamer cases.No longer visiting MMORPG.com.
I had no idea the Quadros were good for gaming
I build the PC's where I work. We do stereo GIS data extraction and the machines I build use Quadro 5600's (as of this month). The boards cost around $3500. Honestly, I never thought about playing games on them. (first of all the network is under strict DSS rules). We just recieved our first 6 a couple weeks ago with the 5600's. We're getting 6 more this week that I need to build.
since theyre not on network yet, I may have to troubleshoot them with oblivion before I put the final disk image on them
the thing I dont get is why is this announcement just coming out since weve had these machines for over 2 weeks now? However, they JUST came out and we did wait a week beforehand to have them delivered
*edit* and yes, they are HUGE and they are noisy
"If you want a picture of the future, imagine a robot foot stomping on a human face -- forever."
They really aren't. Just as gaming cards have built in instruction sets for game related functions and can not run rendering al lrendering functions a workstation card can not run all game functions but can run more overlays and such things which are important for pre-rendering and checking a project mid stride. Both are powerful but a gamer would lose many functions getting a quadros line card and the power would be wasted. No game runs 20 overlays of video and final press quailty renderings of alpha channel effects are not done n real time with a workstation card. To get the necessary quality you are talkign about applying the filter as a burn in overlay on a NLE system.
Gamer cards and workstation cards just do different things.
nothing new .... aside from the soft extension upgrades .. pixel shader ... shader model 4.0 ect... its all been done before ..
and its not true 128 core ... might have multiple FPU's or SPE's but they are not cores ... companies like sony and such hype up any additional CPU-DIE components as cores these days ...
far as im concerned ... nvidia as usual is not really doing anything new ... SLI ( voodoo cards had this tech first back in the 90's, alienware developed the bridge for it and nvidia bought it )
unified shaders ( ati has had them over a year now in their graphics GPU's ( i believe the 520's and above)
the rest as far as multiple core's ect...
read up on the microchip designer 3dlabs ( once one of the greatest open GL card makers on the market ... now they center on GPU's )
although i have not played with quadors as of lately ( last year os so ) being a graphic designer 3d modeler .. im all too familiar with 3d workhorses .. and the quadros always sucked imho ...
id go firegl or even better WILDCAT REALIZM 800 anyday ... ( speaking in terms of comparisons between cards within its day )
far as gaming now that AMD has purchased ati ... the new 4x4 crossfire setups with DIRECT HTX links from the VIDEO card to the CPU are where its at ...
GREAT NEWS!
I hope they just keep pouring out insane video card technology as fast as humanly possible. What I am really hoping for as a direct result is that I can buy me a new 768MB Nvidia 8800 GTX for about $99 by the end of the year! Hehe, Yes I know.. I know. Not likely at all, but I can dream can't I? I really, really want one of those 8800 badboys in my tower. Bwah ha ha ha ha ha!
- Zaxx