Nvidia Releases 240-Core Graphics Processor (
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The Tesla 10 series processor is Nvidia's latest offering for high-performance computing.Nvidia is looking to expand its presence in the high-performance
computing market with a second-generation graphics processor that offers
240 graphics processing cores and 1 teraflop of performance.
The graphics company is officially releasing its Tesla 10 series GPU
(graphics processing unit) June 16 along with a new 1U (1.75-inch) rack-mount
server designed for the increasingly competitive HPC
market.
In 2007, Nvidia
released the first of its Tesla processors for HPC as the company looked to
expand its business beyond its traditional market of discrete graphics and chip
sets for PCs. In order to create a community that would develop applications
for a GPU-based HPC system, the company also developed a programming language
dubbed CUDA (Compute Unified Device Architecture), which allows the GPU to be
programmed like an x86 CPU. With the release of the new Tesla GPU, Nvidia is
also releasing an early version of CUDA 2.0.
While most HPC is done with traditional
microprocessors, Nvidia said it believes the GPU, which can break data apart
and solve problems by working in parallel, represents a shift in how to offer
more performance at the chip level for solving large, complex problems in
fields ranging from financial services to oil and gas exploration.
Amitabh Varshney, a professor of computer science at the University
of Maryland, is currently working
to create applications that take advantage of HPC
systems that use a combination of CPUs and GPUs. He wrote in an email that GPUs
have open up new avenues for students and others to think about how write
applications that take advantage of the possibilities of parallel computing.
Over the next few years because of the wide and
inexpensive availability of GPUs we might very well see a large
number of young parallel programming hobbyists and visual computing
enthusiasts who take to GPUs just because it is fun while being
challenging, Varshney wrote. HPC is likely
to benefit from a large pool of talented and interested enthusiasts. Another
salutary impact of increased affordability of HPC
through GPUs is likely to be the broadening of HPC's
target areas to a far richer suite of driving applications.
Other IT companies are also using graphics technology to offer better
performance for HPC systems and
supercomputers. IBM
used its own Cell processor as an accelerator in its newly installed Roadrunner
supercomputer, while Intel and Advanced Micro Devices are each looking to
develop chips that combine CPUs and GPUs on the same silicon die.