NVIDIA's GeForce 8800 (G80): GPUs Re-architected for DirectX 10
by Anand Lal Shimpi & Derek Wilson on November 8, 2006 6:01 PM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
General Purpose Processing
With all the talk about how general purpose G80 is, can we expect it to replace our shiny new quad core desktop processor? This isn't quite possible at this point due to the way most general purpose code uses the CPU. Many dependencies and low parallelism prevent NVIDIA from simply dropping this in a motherboard and running Windows on it.
But there are general purpose tasks that lend themselves well to the parallelism of G80, and NVIDIA is enabling developers to take advantage of this via a technology they call CUDA (Compute Unified Device Architecture).
The major thing to take away from this is that NVIDIA will have a C compiler that is able to generate code targeted at their architecture. We aren't talking about some OpenGL code manipulated to use graphics hardware for math. This will be C code written like a developer would write C.
A programmer will be able to treat G80 like a hugely parallel data processing engine. Applications that require massively parallel compute power will see huge speed up when running on G80 as compared to the CPU. This includes financial analysis, matrix manipulation, physics processing, and all manner of scientific computations.
NVIDIA has written a totally separate driver for G80 that will be used to run compiled C code targeted at G80. The reason they've done this is because the usage model for GPGPU programming is so different from that of graphics. Both the graphics driver and the CUDA driver can be running on G80 at the same time. This may allow programmers to take advantage of CUDA for in game physics on a single card. The driver changes the conceptual layout of the GPU into something that looks more like this:
This design, along with stream output capabilities, allows programmers to treat the GPU like a general purpose data processing engine. Each block of 16 SPs is able to share data with each other and can perform multiple passes on the data without having to write out and read back in from the onboard graphics memory. Developers are given the ability to manage the caches themselves.
Will NVIDIA make an x86 CPU? Most likely not, but we may see NVIDIA produce even more general purpose CPUs for the handheld, CE, integrated markets. NVIDIA may end up becoming a producer of system on a chip solutions utilizing its graphics technology and simply expanding G80 to be more general purpose (and obviously get rid of some of the SPs in order to lower costs).
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Sunrise089 - Thursday, November 9, 2006 - link
Then I suppose he's in the market to part with an ugly old high-end CRT. I'd love to buy it from him. Seriously.JarredWalton - Thursday, November 9, 2006 - link
You want an older 21" Cornerstone CRT? It's a beast, but you can have it for the cost of shipping (which unfortunately would probably be ~$50). I'd also sell my Samsung 997DF 19" CRT for about $50, and maybe an NEC FE991-SB for $50 (which unfortunately has a scratch from my daughter in the anti-glare coating). If anyone lives in the Olympia, WA area, you know how to contact me (I hope). I'd rather someone come by to pick up any of these CRTs rather than shipping, as I don't think I have the original boxes.DerekWilson - Thursday, November 9, 2006 - link
lol next thing you know links to ebay auctions are gonna start showing up in our articles :-)yyrkoon - Thursday, November 9, 2006 - link
lol, I've got a 21" techtronics I'll sell for $200 usd, plus shipping ;) Hasnt been used since I purchased my Viewsonic VA1912wb (well, been used very little ).imaheadcase - Wednesday, November 8, 2006 - link
can't stand AA benchmarks myself :)Question: Do you have any info on what kinda card nvidia releasing this feb? Is it something in between these 2 cards or something even lower?
Im looking for a $300ish g80! :D
flexy - Wednesday, November 8, 2006 - link
if ANYTHING counts then how those high-end cards perform WITH their various AA settings.... the power of those cards (and the money spent on :) RIGHT translated into ---> IMAGE QUALITY/PERFORMANCE.Please dont tell you you would get an G80 but do NOT care about AA, this does NOT make any sense...sorry...
I am especially impressed reading that transparency AA has such a LITTLE performance impact. What game engine did you test this on ?
On the older ATI cards (and am i right that T.A. is the same as "adaptive antialiasing" ? )...this feature (depending on game engine) is the FPS killer....eg. w/ games like oblivion (WHERE ARE THE GOTHIC 3 BENCHEIS BTW ? :)...much vegetation etc. game-engines.
Enable transparency AA and see all those trees, grass etc. without jaggies.
imaheadcase - Thursday, November 9, 2006 - link
Well lots of people don't are for AA. Even if i had this card I would not use it. I visually see NO difference with it on or off. Its personal test. I don't even see "jaggies" on my older 9700 PRO card.flexy - Thursday, November 9, 2006 - link
you sure are talking about ANTIALIASING ???What resoltions do you run ? Not that my CRT can even handle more than 1600x1200..but even w/ 1600 i get VERY prominent jaggies if i dont run AA.
I made it a habit to run at least 4xAA in ANY game, and some engines (hl2:source engine) etc. run extremely well with 4xAA, even 6xAA is very playable at elast with HL2.
The very recent games, namely NWN2 and G3 now dont support AA, playing at 1280x1024 and it looks utterly horrible ! If you say you dont see jags in say ANY resolution under 1600..very hard to believe
imaheadcase - Thursday, November 9, 2006 - link
Yes im talking about antialiasing. I normally play BF2 and oblivion at 1024x768 (9700 pro remember).Fact is most people won't see them unless someone points them out. The brain is still better at rendering stuff the way you want to see it vs hardware :)
flexy - Thursday, November 9, 2006 - link
ok..but then it's also a performance problem. If it doesn't bother you, well ok.I also have to settle w/ the fact that many RECENT games are even unable to do AA..however i wish they would.
But once i get a 8800 i will do &&&& to get the most out of IQ, AA, AF, transparency/texture AF, you name it. ALONE also for the reason that i would need a super-high end monitor first to even run resolutions like 2000xsomething...and as long as i have a lame 19" CRT and CANNOT even go over 1600 (99,99% of games even running everything on 1280x or 1360x) i will use all the power to get out best possible IQ in those low resolutions.
Also..looking at the benchmarks..its NOT that you lose any real time gaming-experiencee since THOSE monster cards are made for exactly this...eg. running oblivion with all those settings at MAX AND AA on and HDR...and you are still in VERY reasobale FPS ranges.