Nvidia GPU Technology Conference, Final Day 3
The Summary
This was an amazing experience for this editor to witness the follow-up to a computing revolution that began just last year at Nvision08 and one that has continued unabated with the 2009 GTC. Considering that this is one of the worst recessions in memory, it is an amazing thing that Nvidia is doing with their GPU. It is not longer simply a Graphics Processing Unit, but they have refashioned it into a General Processing Unit – a co-processor with the CPU. To do this, they realized that they need to invest major company resources into not only next generation, brand new-architecture, Fermi; but into the tools and the complete support “ecosystem” for the programmers and developers that work with high-performance computing.
What is most impressive is that Nvidia has been planning this for more than 4 years – for that is how long it has taken to go from design to production for Fermi! Nvidia has created a 3 billion transistor powerhouse that should also be the fastest graphics card when it is released later this year as the GeForce GTX. But Nvidia no longer wants to be known as a company that makes Graphics cards. They want to be known as a company that makes great processors that have amazing graphics. Well, we are indeed looking forward to the Fermi GF100 GTX but realize the importance of what Nvidia has accomplished.
We saw hundreds of enthusiastic attendees – something that cannot be faked – really appreciate the new technology that is coming and what was released here. It is exactly what researchers and scientists need for continuing their important work in almost every field where parallel computing is useful. We saw grateful programmers and developers paying rapt attention to CUDA demonstrations and to new tools that will make their life easier as they turn out better applications.
Conclusion
This editor is very impressed as he is certain that he has glimpsed the future and is now able to see clearly where ABT fits in with our own vision of changing the way humans interact on the Internet. We will need the GPU’s computing power and cloud computing to make what we are attempting real. And we expect to use the services of other companies and programming tools that are being made available by Nvidia to make our 21st century dream solid of us interacting in real-time and in all languages in a 3D forum world.
We expect to be posting more information about Nvidia’s GTC 2009. We still have 40 GB of High definition, high resolution (1080p) video to work on, edit and upload and much more to say about the Fermi architecture as the launch of the new GTX gets closer. Make sure you join us on our ABT forums to discuss anything on your mind.
Nvidia gets a 9/10 for this conference; a solid “A” for what it was and is becoming and I am looking forward to GTC 2010! As a plea to them, make next year’s conference schedule less hectic and definitely make it longer. Kudos for not dumping us into San Jose rush hour traffic at 3 PM, as last year. This editor sees the GPU computing revolution as real and we welcome it!
Mark Poppin
ABT Senior Editor
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