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Nvidia's Quadro CX GPU optimized for people who don't suck at Photoshop
Check it Donnie, Nvidia just launched its Quadro CX accelerator card for Adobe's Creative Suite 4. The optimized GPU fits into your PC's PCIe slot to smooth image navigation and manipulation in Photoshop while accelerating effects in Adobe's After Effects and Premier Pro. Nvidia claims that the new GPU helps encode H.264 video at "lightning-fast speeds" when using Nvidia's Cuda-enabled CS4 plug-in while giving professionals accurate video previews with uncompressed 30-bit color or 10-/12-bit SDI (for professional video equipment) before final output. The Quadro CX features a 1.5GB (GDDR3) frame buffer and 76.8GBps memory bandwidth with dual-DisplayPort connectors (up to 2560 x 1600 pixels) and a single dual-link DVI with support for panels up to 3,840 x 2,400 @24Hz. Look, we know this sounds all stupid-hard advanced to those of you using Photoshop to hotten-up your Facebook pic, but the pros are going to love it. $1,999 and available today -- video demonstration just beyond the read link. [Via InformationWeek]
Elcomsoft uses NVIDIA GPUs to crack WPA2
Elcomsoft has been using NVIDIA's CUDA GPU computing architecture to accelerate its Distributed Password Recovery tool for a while now, but it looks like the latest version of the cracking utility takes it to the next level -- it can break a WPA2 password using two GeForce GTX 280-based boards 100 times faster than with just a CPU. It's still a brute-force crack, but only a few packets need be sniffed, and the GPU accelerates the algorithm used to generate keys significantly -- even laptop-grade 8800M and 9800M GPUs speed things up 10 to 15 times. We wouldn't worry too much about wardrivers with trunk-mounted bladeservers going nuts, however -- the base version of the software costs $599, and things ramp up to $5,000 pretty quickly.[Via HotHardware]
51-card NVIDIA folding rig can crank out 265,200 points / day
Sure, it's all well and good to play around with the Folding@Home client on toys like the PS3, but if you're really serious about out-nerding the rest of the pack, you need big-boy hardware, like this 51-card NVIDIA-based rig built by nitteo of the overclock.net forums. That's 51 8800-series GPUs on 13 MSI P6N Diamond mobos, enough for an estimated 265,200 folding points per day when they all go online -- and we're guessing that number will go up when that new CUDA-based folding client released yesterday is installed. Now let's just hope all those cards can stand the heat, hmm? More pics at the read link -- and remember, we're always down for more help on the Engadget Folding@Home team![Via x64bit.net]
NVIDIA offers PhysX and CUDA support to GeForce 8 and higher
Assuming your NVIDIA GeForce graphics card isn't broken, the company has added PhysX and CUDA support to its GeForce 8, 9 and 200-series via the free Power Pack download, found on its Force Within page (via press release). The company is also offering a few Unreal Tournament 3 PhysX-enabled maps, the full Warmonger game, Folding@Home, demos of Metal Knight Zero and Nurien and various tech demos. Each game has to support PhysX before you'll notice a difference (here's a list of supported titles). Once we download the update, we'll let you know just how much more awesome our copies of Sherlock Holmes: The Awakening are. (Answer: so much more awesome.)
NVIDIA releases new Quadro Plex D CUDA desktop rigs
NVIDIA's really pushing the GPU-as-CPU angle at SIGGRAPH this year -- we've already seen the PhysX and CUDA-powered GeForce Power Pack for consumers, and the company is also updating the Quadro Plex series of visual co-processors for workstation customers. The new Quadro Plex 2200 D2, designed for large datasets and models, crunches data through two Quadro FX 5800 GPUs (totalling 480 CUDA cores) and 8GB of RAM, while the Quadro Plex 2100 D2 is optimized for large multidisplay rigs with four Quadro FX 4700 GPUs and support for up to eight monitors. Sounds fun -- and we're guessing the people who can justify the $10,500 starting price for these rigs think so too.
NVIDIA enables PhysX and CUDA support for GeForce 8 and higher GPUs with free downloads
It's not a direct response to AMD unveiling the HD Radeon 4850 X2 and 4870 X2 yesterday, but NVIDIA also came to play at SIGGRAPH, and it's got lots of new GPU-as-CPU toys for us this morning -- and what's more, they're free. Like we'd been hearing, GeForce 8, 9, and 200-series cards are all getting PhysX support as of today via a free GeForce Power Pack that contains a free full copy of Warmonger, three PhysX-enabled Unreal Tournament 3 maps, demos of Metal Knight Zero and the Nurien UT3-based social networking service, and a couple tech demos. The Power Pack also includes some new CUDA apps to play with, including a new Folding@Home client (ahem) and a trial version of the Badaboom video transcoder. That's a lot of new toys, so get downloading and let us know what you think!Read - PhysX GeForce Power Pack appsRead - CUDA GeForce Power Pack apps
Intel exec says NVIDIA's CUDA will be a "footnote" in history
NVIDIA execs have been talking smack about general-purpose CPUs for a while now, and it looks like Intel's ready to do some talking of its own -- speaking to CustomPC, Intel SVP Pat Gelsinger said that general-purpose GPU computing initiatives like NVIDIA's CUDA would be nothing more than "interesting footnotes in the history of computing annals." According to Gelsinger, the lack of a viable new programming model has held back similarly different architectures like the PS3's Cell because "years later the application programmers have barely been able to comprehend how to write applications for it." That's certainly an interesting point, but we'd say Gelsinger's not really taking stock of the big picture here -- fully utilizing the power of the GPU is the whole point of CUDA, after all, and OS developers like Apple are pushing OpenCL as a way to make GPU acceleration easier to for developers to access. Still, Intel has already said that discrete graphics are on their way out as hybrid tech like Larrabee enters the scene, and Gelsinger basically repeated the party line, saying that and "evolutionary compatible computing model" will be the "right answer long term." Those are some fightin' words -- it's going to be interesting to see how these competing chip strategies play out as other entrants like AMD's Fusion slowly make the scene as well.
NVIDIA unveils second-gen Tesla GPU-based workstation cards
NVIDIA's Tesla GPU-based high-performance computing workstations and add-in cards have been on the market for a whole year now, and to celebrate, they're getting birthday cake, balloons, and an upgrade to GT200-based chipsets. Like AMD's recently-announced FireStream 9250, the new T10P processing units are capable of breaking the teraflop barrier, up from the first gen's paltry 518 GFlops, and they're up to 240 cores from the first gen's 128. You'll have to shell out to get all that horsepower, though: the entry-level, 900GFlops C1060 PCI card will sell for $1699, while the four-GPU 1U S1070 blade will sell for $7995 for two PCIe-interface version or $8295 for the single PCIe connect model. The standalone Tesla workstation has been discontinued, as customers were increasingly buying the cards, so it looks like those are really fast collectors' items for now. So, who's going to be the first to add one of these bad boys to the Engadget Folding@Home team?[Via Tom's Hardware, thanks Matan]
NVIDIA unveils Quadro FX 3600M for laptops
Desktop gamers weren't the only ones scoring a little love from NVIDIA today -- the company also rolled out the Quadro FX 3600M laptop graphics GPU, which it says provides professional workstation-level performance on the road. The CUDA-capable chip is designed to be mounted on a standard mobile graphics board, and the stock configuration sports 512MB of RAM, power-management features, and a 256-bit memory interface that opens up 51.2GB/s of graphic memory bandwidth. Sadly, there's no word on price, but the first machine out the gate with the new GPU will be the 17-inch HP Compaq 8710w, which currently runs in the $2,500 - $3,000 range.
NVIDIA stuffs four Quadro FX 5600 GPUs into 1U server
Yeah, we all agreed that the Quadro Plex 1000 was hot stuff in its heyday, but NVIDIA's latest GPU server blows away prior iterations by cramming four Quadro FX 5600s into a 1U enclosure. The Quadro Plex VCS Server packs a "record number" of GPUs into a 1U form factor, and its 6GB frame buffer (1.5GB per GPU) and mind-boggling computational abilities should please those interested in remote graphics / offline rendering. Additionally, it's built to "dynamically allocate compute, geometry, shading, and pixel processing power for optimized GPU performance," and while there's no mention of a price, those actually in the market for this beast probably aren't concerned.[Via MacsimumNews]
NVIDIA launches Tesla: GPUs are the new CPUs
We've seen a couple cautious attempts at leveraging the raw floating-point capabilities of modern high-powered graphics cards, but NVIDIA is taking the gloves off with the launch of Tesla, its new general-purpose computing platform built on the 8-series graphics cards we all know and love. According to NVIDIA, the only way to skirt the inevitable collapse of Moore's Law is to join the GPU and CPU together, so two of the three Tesla configs are in the form of workstation upgrades -- a $1,499 single GPU PCI Express card and a $7,500 dual-GPU "deskside supercomputer" that plugs into a custom PCI controller. The truly crazy can pony up a full $12,000 for NVIDIA's first rack units, the four-GPU Tesla S870, which has a peak performance of 2 Teraflops. We're hearing the card and deskside unit will be available in August and that the servers will start shipping in November or December -- perfect for the Engadget Folding@Home holiday rush.
NVIDIA's CUDA turns GPUs into high-powered CPUs
NVIDIA's been dancing around the general-purpose processor market for a while now -- we've heard reports that the company is developing an x86 chip, and it bought PortalPlayer last year for $357 million. Well, at this year's Microprocessor Forum the company took another small step by announcing that the final release of CUDA, its framework for utilizing high-end NVIDIA GPUs as CPUs, which will be available to developers in the second half of the year. While the idea of using a GPU as a secondary high-performance processor isn't a new one -- Folding@Home already runs on NVIDIA and ATI chips, and the Peakstream system already leverages GPUs -- CUDA should make it easier for developers to tap into high-performance graphics devices whenever they're available, without having to specifically tailor their apps to do so. CUDA, which stands for "compute unifed device architecture," currently only supports the GeForce 8800 and 8600 and Quadro FX 4600 and 5600, so it's of limited appeal right now, but here's hoping the next gen of NVIDIA chips supports CUDA from the get-go -- the Engadget Folding@Home team is looking for a few new recruits.
