The power of GPU Computing
There are a lot of talking going on in the computer graphics industry. NVIDIA awakened the world to the power of computer graphics when it invented the GPU long back in GPU in 1999. Before that no one knew what is GPU and what is graphics card. But since then there has been consistently new standards set in visual computing with breathtaking interactive graphics available on devices ranging from potable media player to notebooks to workstations. The graphics card manufacturer’s expertise in programmable GPUs has led to breakthroughs in parallel processing which makes supercomputing inexpensive and widely accessible. The GPU was conceived primarily for the task of rendering graphics. For the avid teen gamer. However, in the early 2000’s, the engineers at NVIDIA decided that the GPUs graphics shaders and high throughout ALU/arithmetic units meant that the GPU made for an exceptional parallel computing platform. Before parallel algorithms were implemented using awkward OpenGL/DirectX techniques that were terribly cumbersome for the non-graphics programmer. Thus the Compute Unified architecture was born and paved the way for the CUDA programming language. Its a language which can be accessible to anyone who knows C and C++ and they could well know how CUDA works.
One of the main reasons for the move towards parallel processing is that we have reached the point where increasing clock speed on the processor is no longer available. The only substantial way of increasing overall processor speed is to increase the numbers of processors. Even in the CPU world, once the Pentium 4’s reached, Intel had no choice bu to move to Dual Core and Quad Core architectures. In the world of GPU vs CPU computing, there is a number games currently played by all parties. Intel recently made claims that the GPU is only about 10-14 x faster than their CPU cores, while NVIDIA claimed that performance is really 60x-100x. Unsurprisingly both of these companies employed professional engineers to implement extremely low level optimizations to swing the odds in their favor.
The latest about mobile graphics throws light on the latest going on mobile graphics technology. The latest trend in power management is delivered by energy efficient technology like Switchable Graphics. Imagine combining the low power advantages of an integrated graphics processor with the performances of a discrete graphics processor. With Switchable Graphics now you can have the best of both of worlds with maximum performance when you need it and long battery life when on the go. Thanks to the booming video game industry and the the fierce competition between ATI and NVIDIA, the unending thirst for better graphics cards is likely for the next decade. In all its significant boon for all the computational scientist.
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