Consumers want
blazing fast performance-whether blasting their way through the latest game
or being socially responsible and sharing their PC's processing power to
help find cures for diseases. Today, NVIDIA Corporation (Nasdaq: NVDA), the
worldwide leader in visual computing technologies, just made this easier by
releasing a set of non-graphics applications that utilize the power of its
GeForce(R) graphics cards. Included in the GeForce Power Pack are Stanford
University's Folding@home distributed-computing, protein-folding client and
a trial version of Elemental Technologies' Badaboom video transcoder.
Available for download today at no-cost at
http://www.nvidia.com/theforcewithin, these are part of a growing number of
applications that use the power of NVIDIA GeForce(R) graphics processing
units (GPU) and NVIDIA(R) CUDA(TM) C-programming technology to
significantly improve the performance of non-graphics applications by
transferring the workload from the CPU to the more efficient GPU.
All of the 80 million plus GeForce 8 Series and higher GPUs in the
field are CUDA-enabled, the largest installed base of general-purpose,
parallel-computing processors ever created. The same GPU architecture that
delivers stunning onscreen computer graphics in video games is also ideal
for many other types of applications. The latest generation of NVIDIA
GeForce GPUs offer up to 240 processor cores, compared to a maximum of the
four cores found on the highest-end CPU. Any process that can be divided
into multiple elements and run in parallel can be programmed to take
advantage of the massive processing potential of the GPU.
NVIDIA first released its CUDA programming technology in 2007,
providing software developers a programming environment based on the
industry-standard C language for easy creation of applications running on
NVIDIA GPUs. Numerous commercial and scientific applications have adopted
CUDA technology and now consumer applications are starting to emerge that
take advantage of the technology.
"CUDA has the potential be a disruptive force in both the GPU and CPU
industries," says Anand Shimpi, CEO and editor-in-chief of AnandTech.com.
"Apps like Badaboom, that solve significant problems for the home PC user,
could give NVIDIA hardware a significant advantage over other GPUs and it
points to the need for consumers to optimize their PCs so they have both
decent CPU and GPU power."
Elemental Technologies' Badaboom is a video transcoding program that
converts video files into other formats. For example, the program can
convert an MPEG file to play on an iPod or other portable device. Video
transcoding can be one of the most time-consuming tasks in home computing.
Converting a two-hour movie, for instance, can take six or more hours when
using the computer's CPU. However, with Badaboom on the GPU, the conversion
process can be up to 18 times faster than traditional methods, getting the
job done in a few minutes and, in the meantime, also freeing the CPU to
handle other tasks like email and Web browsing.
Tackling the intense processing demands of ongoing medical research,
Stanford University's Folding@home distributed computing program, gives
consumers the opportunity to share their computer processing power in an
effort to help find a cure for disease. Running up to 140 times faster on
an NVIDIA GPU over a CPU, Folding@home makes use of idle computer cycles to
perform scientific calculations. Folding@home studies protein folding,
where proteins in our bodies assemble themselves. Biologists simulate
protein folding in order to understand how proteins fold so quickly and
reliably, and to discover what happens if they do not fold correctly.
Diseases such as Alzheimer's, cystic fibrosis, BSE (Mad Cow disease), an
inherited form of emphysema, and many cancers are believed to result from
protein misfolding. The Folding@home client is a free program that runs in
the background of the PC, allowing ordinary people to have a real impact in
the search for a cure of these diseases.
NVIDIA
NVIDIA is the world leader in visual computing technologies and the
inventor of the GPU, a high-performance processor which generates
breathtaking, interactive graphics on workstations, personal computers,
game consoles, and mobile devices. NVIDIA serves the entertainment and
consumer market with its GeForce graphics products, the professional design
and visualization market with its Quadro(R) graphics products, and the
high-performance computing market with its Tesla(TM) computing solutions
products. NVIDIA is headquartered in Santa Clara, Calif. and has offices
throughout Asia, Europe, and the Americas. NVIDIA's inaugural NVISION 08
conference will be held August 25-27, 2008 in San Jose, California.
Source: NVIDIA
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