NVIDIA's Fermi: Architected for Tesla, 3 Billion Transistors in 2010
by Anand Lal Shimpi on September 30, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Efficiency Gets Another Boon: Parallel Kernel Support
In GPU programming, a kernel is the function or small program running across the GPU hardware. Kernels are parallel in nature and perform the same task(s) on a very large dataset.
Typically, companies like NVIDIA don't disclose their hardware limitations until a developer bumps into one of them. In GT200/G80, the entire chip could only be working on one kernel at a time.
When dealing with graphics this isn't usually a problem. There are millions of pixels to render. The problem is wider than the machine. But as you start to do more general purpose computing, not all kernels are going to be wide enough to fill the entire machine. If a single kernel couldn't fill every SM with threads/instructions, then those SMs just went idle. That's bad.
GT200 (left) vs. Fermi (right)
Fermi, once again, fixes this. Fermi's global dispatch logic can now issue multiple kernels in parallel to the entire system. At more than twice the size of GT200, the likelihood of idle SMs went up tremendously. NVIDIA needs to be able to dispatch multiple kernels in parallel to keep Fermi fed.
Application switch time (moving between GPU and CUDA mode) is also much faster on Fermi. NVIDIA says the transition is now 10x faster than GT200, and fast enough to be performed multiple times within a single frame. This is very important for implementing more elaborate GPU accelerated physics (or PhysX, great ;)…).
The connections to the outside world have also been improved. Fermi now supports parallel transfers to/from the CPU. Previously CPU->GPU and GPU->CPU transfers had to happen serially.
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SiliconDoc - Thursday, October 1, 2009 - link
Good for you, one of 7 billion, and then again one of perhaps 20, as reported for Europe.But, all you see is yourself, because you're just that selfish. And, you're a big enough liar, that you even posted your insane smart aleck stupidity, like a little brat.
That's what you're about. Case closed.
bobvodka - Thursday, October 1, 2009 - link
Ah, I see, you have no facts to refute me with thus you fall back to unfounded insults safe in the knowledge that you are nothing but a troll hiding behind a keyboard.Sorry I wasted my time with you, clearly you aren't able to deal with the world in logical terms.
rennya - Thursday, October 1, 2009 - link
Uhmm... maybe because it is common knowledge that ATI can actually get 5870 launched properly, with multiple manufacturers on board, and get the retail stores stocked up?20 for the whole Europe? What a joke. If I am a millionaire, I can get 20 of those 5870 GPU thing easily.
SiliconDoc - Thursday, October 1, 2009 - link
This is October 1st, not September 23rd, so for being a millionaire, you certainly are one ding dang dumb dumb.gx80050 - Friday, October 2, 2009 - link
Isn't the internet great. It allows shitheads like yourself to say shit that would, in real life
get your head cracked open.
Hopefully you'll suffer the same fate fucking cunt.
Please turn to the loaded gun in your drawer, put it in your mouth, and pull the trigger,
blowing your brains out. You'll be doing the whole world a favor. Shitbag.
rennya - Friday, October 2, 2009 - link
Hahahaha.... even that today is already 1 October, you are still claiming that 5870 GPU is paper launch, when it is definitely not.rennya - Thursday, October 1, 2009 - link
What paper launch? Is Newegg is the only place to get one? Here somewhere in SE Asia getting one of this 5870 GPU is as easy as going to a store, flash your wad of cash at the cashier and then returns home with a box with pre-rendered 3D objects/characters on it (and of course an ATI 5870 GPU in it). In fact, after a week from the release date, there is a glut of them here already, mainly from Powercolor and HIS.SiliconDoc - Thursday, October 1, 2009 - link
LOL - roflmao - So announce in the foreign tongue, and move to the next continent when ready, you dummy. They didn't do that. They LIED, again, and failed.A week late is better than several or a month or two for the 4870.
You can't buy quantity yet either, but for peons, who cares.
rennya - Thursday, October 1, 2009 - link
Uhmm... the second language in SE Asia is English. What, just because I can prove to you that 5870 launch is real, you started to deny it? Are you the typical American that thinks the rest of the world doesn't exists?SiliconDoc - Thursday, October 1, 2009 - link
Yuo can't prove anything to me, since you won't be proving the GT300 LAUNCHED like the author claimed.Instead, none of you quacking loons have anything but "foreign nation", no links and it's too late, and strangely none of you type in the Asain fashion.
LOL
So who the heck knows what you liars are doing anyway.
The paper standard was set by this site and it's authors, and the 4870 was paper, the 4770 was paper, and this 5870 was paper, PERIOD, and as of this morning the 5850 was also PAPER LAUNCHED.
What's funny is only you morons deny it.
All the other IT channels admit it.
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Good for you red roosters here, you're the only ones correct in the world. ( no, you're not really, and I had to say that because you'll believe anything )