StreamProcessor
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AMD announces FireStream 9170, first dedicated stream processor
The true computing geeks in the house are about to need adult diapers: AMD's launching a dedicated stream processor, the FireStream 9170, and an accompanying SDK today, which will be available in Q108. Granted, this 55nm "world's first Stream GPU with double-precision floating point technology" will run you two grand, but you'll be getting 500 GFLOPS at under 150 watts power draw, but you'll get all the insane math-crunching benefits of stream processing that your current number-crunching rig isn't seeing, despite the eight 8800s you've got jury-rigged into the thing. Press release after the break. Read more about stream processing here (because we're reall in no position to lecture on its benefits).
AMD Stream Processor launched, uses GPU power for general tasks
Well, AMD's achieved that stream computing thing (with the help of its latest acquisition, ATI) that we've all been hearing about for the last month and change. At the Supercomputing 2006 show down in Tampa, Florida, the company announced what it claims to be the "world's first dedicated stream processor." The new GPU, creatively named the "AMD Stream Processor," is a PCI Express card that is loaded up with 1GB of GDDR3 memory. TG Daily reports that the new processor is based on the R580 graphics processor used in ATI's Radeon X1900 graphics cards and that it has the potential of reaching 375 gigaflops. Now again, we take these numbers with a healthy dose of skepticism -- while AMD's claims of performance boosts may hold up in the lab, it's pretty unlikely that your everyday computer applications will benefit exponentially from all those floating point operations.[Via TG Daily]
