'NVIDIA Tesla has opened up completely new worlds for computational electromagnetics.' -Ryan Schneider, Acceleware
(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20070620/AQW150)
(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20020613/NVDALOGO)
NVIDIA took a giant step in meeting this challenge with today's announcement of a new class of processors based on a revolutionary new graphics processing unit (GPU). Under the NVIDIA(R) Tesla(TM) brand, NVIDIA will offer a family of GPU computing products that will place the power previously available only from supercomputers in the hands of every scientist and engineer. Today's workstations will be transformed into "personal supercomputers."
"Today's science is no longer confined to the laboratory; scientists employ computer simulations before a single physical experiment is performed. This fundamental transition to computational methods is forging a new path for discoveries in science and engineering," said Jen-Hsun Huang, president and CEO of NVIDIA. "By dramatically reducing computation times, in some cases from weeks to hours, NVIDIA Tesla represents the single most significant disruption the high-performance computing industry has seen since Cray 1's introduction of vector processing."
The Tesla family of GPU computing solutions span from PCs to large scale server clusters. The new family includes:
-- NVIDIA Tesla GPU Computing Processor, a dedicated computing board that
scales to multiple Tesla GPUs inside a single PC or workstation. The
Tesla GPU features 128 parallel processors and delivers up to
518 gigaflops of parallel computation. The GPU computing processor can
be used in existing systems, partnered with high-performance CPUs.
-- NVIDIA Tesla Deskside Supercomputer, a scalable computing system that
includes two NVIDIA Tesla GPUs and attaches to a PC or workstation
through an industry-standard PCI-Express connection. With multiple
deskside systems, a standard PC or workstation is transformed into a
personal supercomputer, delivering up to 8 teraflops of compute power
to the desktop.
-- NVIDIA Tesla GPU Computing Server, a 1U server housing up to eight
NVIDIA Tesla GPUs, containing more than 1000 parallel processors that
add teraflops of parallel processing to clusters. The Tesla GPU Server
is the first server system of its kind to bring GPU computing to the
datacenter.
Example Applications Contact Application
Speedup
Seismic Database
www.headwave.com 66 to 100X
Cell Phone Antenna
Simulation
www.acceleware.com 45X
Molecular Dynamics
http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/Research/vmd/ 240X
Neuron Simulation
www.evolvedmachines.com 100X
MRI Processing
http://bic-test.beckman.uiuc.edu/ 245 to 415X
Atmospheric Cloud
Simulation
www.cs.clemson.edu/~jesteel/clouds.html 50X
Computing on NVIDIA Tesla is now available to any software developer through the world's only C-language development environment for the GPU. NVIDIA(R) CUDA(TM) is a complete software development solution that includes a C-compiler for the GPU, debugger/profiler, dedicated driver, and standard libraries. CUDA simplifies parallel computing on the GPU by using the standard C language to create programs that process large quantities of data in parallel. Programs written with CUDA and run on Tesla are able to process thousands of threads simultaneously, providing high computational throughput to enable the GPU to quickly solve complex, computational problems. The NVIDIA CUDA development environment is currently supported on the Linux and Microsoft(R) Windows(R) XP operating systems.
Most applications that require massive compute power can leverage the power of NVIDIA Tesla to make parallel computing power more pervasive and affordable. CUDA's recent success can be seen in both the academic and the application development communities. In addition to adoption by leading universities that are pioneering new courses in parallel computing, CUDA is being actively used by thousands of developers and scientists in applications from molecular simulation to seismic analysis to medical device design.
"Many of the molecular structures we analyze are so large that they can take weeks of processing time to run the calculations required for their physical simulation," said John Stone, senior research programmer at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. "NVIDIA's GPU computing technology has given us a 100-fold increase in some of our programs, and this is on desktop machines where previously we would have had to run these calculations to a cluster. NVIDIA Tesla promises to take this forward with more flexible computing solutions."(1)
"Geophysical and seismic analysis has historically been a batch process that takes many, many hours," said Steve Briggs, vice president of systems integration at Headwave, a Houston-based geophysical visualization company. "Without inventions like Tesla and CUDA GPU computing technology, discoveries like Jack Field, where a large oil reserve was detected 27,000 feet beneath the Gulf of Mexico, simply would never have been found. NVIDIA's announcement today is going to make discoveries of this and even larger magnitude more possible."(2)
"Running electromagnetic simulations using NVIDIA's compute hardware accelerates processing times by factors of 25 or more-applying a level of complexity to the analysis and optimization of medical products which nobody dreamed of, even two years ago," said Ryan Schneider, CTO of Acceleware Corporation. "NVIDIA and Acceleware's solutions have opened completely new worlds for computational electromagnetics."
Pricing and Availability
For more NVIDIA Tesla product information, including a list of officially certified host systems and authorized partners, please visit: http://www.nvidia.com/tesla.
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 http://www.nvidia.com.
Certain statements in this press release including, but not limited to, statements as to: the benefits, uses, impact, performance and features of Tesla solutions and CUDA technology; the era of the personal computer; and pricing and availability are forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause results to be materially different than expectations. Such risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, delays in ramping new products into production; software bugs; manufacturing defects; delays in manufacturing or delivery of products; developments of new products and technologies by competitors; unexpected loss of performance when system builders integrate NVIDIA products and technologies; continued acceptance and use of new technologies and products; the impact of competitive products and pricing alternatives; changes in industry standards and interfaces; as well as other factors detailed from time to time in the reports NVIDIA files with the Securities and Exchange Commission including its Form 10-Q for the fiscal period ended April 29, 2007. Copies of reports filed with the SEC are posted on our website and are available from NVIDIA without charge. These forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and speak only as of the date hereof, and, except as required by law, NVIDIA disclaims any obligation to update these forward-looking statements to reflect future events or circumstances.
Copyright (C) 2007 NVIDIA Corporation. All rights reserved. All company and/or product names may be trade names, trademarks and/or registered trademarks of the respective owners with which they are associated. Features, pricing, availability, and specifications are subject to change without notice.
(1) More information: http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/Research/namd/ and
http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/Research/vmd/
(2) More information: http://www.headwave.com/article/articleview/43
Web site: http://www.nvidia.com/