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
Final Words
Today's launch is strange. I tried to convince NVIDIA to release more information about Fermi but was met with staunch resistance from the company. NVIDIA claims that by pre-announcing Fermi's performance levels it would seriously hurt its existing business. It's up to you whether or not you want to believe that.
Last quarter the Tesla business unit made $10M. That's not a whole lot of money for a company that, at its peak, grossed $1B in a single quarter. NVIDIA believes that Fermi is when that will all change. To borrow a horrendously overused phrase, Fermi is the inflection point for NVIDIA's Tesla sales.
By adding support for ECC, enabling C++ and easier Visual Studio integration, NVIDIA believes that Fermi will open its Tesla business up to a group of clients that would previously not so much as speak to NVIDIA. ECC is the killer feature there.
While the bulk of NVIDIA's revenue today comes from 3D graphics, NVIDIA believes that Tegra (mobile) and Tesla are the future growth segments for the company. This hints at a very troubling future for GPU makers - are we soon approaching the Atom-ization of graphics cards?
Will 2010 be the beginning of good enough performance in PC games? Display resolutions have pretty much stagnated, PC games are first developed on consoles which have inferior hardware and thus don't have as high the GPU requirements. The fact that NVIDIA is looking to Tegra and Tesla to grow the company is very telling. Then again, perhaps a brand new approach to graphics is what we'll need for the re-invigoration of PC game development. Larrabee.
If the TAM for GPUs in HPC is so big, why did NVIDIA only make $10M last quarter? If you ask NVIDIA it has to do with focus and sales.
According to NVIDIA, over the past couple of years NVIDIA's Tesla sales efforts have been scattered. The focus was on selling to any customers that could potentially see a speedup, trying to gain some traction for the Tesla business.
Jen-Hsun did some yelling and now NVIDIA is a bit more focused in that department. If Tesla revenues increase linearly from this point, that's simply not going to be enough. I asked NVIDIA if exponential growth for Tesla was in the cards and if so, when would it happen. The answer was yes and with Fermi.
We'll see how that plays out, but if Fermi doesn't significantly increase Tesla revenues then we know that NVIDIA is in serious trouble.
The architecture looks good, Fermi just needs to be priced right. Oh and the chip needs to hurry up and come out.
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SiliconDoc - Thursday, October 1, 2009 - link
Plenty hard, but they GOT HER DONE, and here is the pic of herhttp://www.fudzilla.com/content/view/15762/1/">http://www.fudzilla.com/content/view/15762/1/
Yes, now about that fantasy paper anand was spewing on - yes he won't get one for two months, but AS I SAID, WE ALREADY KNOW IT BEATS the ati epic failure.
rennya - Thursday, October 1, 2009 - link
Where can I get that GPU? At least at my place I can get a 5870 GPU if I want to, but not so for this GPU.SiliconDoc - Thursday, October 1, 2009 - link
Well go get one.Now were down to the launch and paper lies in this article, were lies, as I've said. Bigger lies by the red texters. If I were Anand I'd be giggling at you fools.
rennya - Thursday, October 1, 2009 - link
Newegg link please. Or any other online retailer websites for the matter.Did I already said to stop it with the paper launch already? That only exists in your dreams you know. Or maybe America. But such thing is not true here. Just because America doesn't have enough unit it doesn't mean it is true everywhere else.
SiliconDoc - Thursday, October 1, 2009 - link
Oh, so sorry mi' lady, here is your newegg link, you'll see 2 greyted out 5850's and THAT'S IT.http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Sub...">http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi...10679497...
Can't buy em. Paper, e-paper in this case, digital nothing.
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Now if we only could send you some money, and you could trot over to your imaginary shops.... gee if only someone gave you some money, you could HAVE A PICTURE, because veryone knows handy little cameras are BANNED there, huh.
Gee, all those walks to work.. and not ten seconds to take a pic, and now it's really, too late LOL
ahhahahahahaaa
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More of that wonderful "red rooster evidence".
ClownPuncher - Thursday, October 1, 2009 - link
I bought one, 5850 that is. They are popular, so they sell out. The same thing happened to me when the 8800GT's launched, bought 2 and they were sold out 15 minutes later.If people can buy them, it isn't a paper launch. Give it up. There were cards for sale from many etailers on launch day for the 5870 as well.
You're saying the 8800GT and 8800GTS g92 were paper launches also? They were selling out in minutes.
SiliconDoc - Friday, October 2, 2009 - link
Funny how you wait for the perfect post to claim your lie is true.You're a pure troll, nothing more, in every single post you've made here.
Of course I know you're lying.
rennya - Friday, October 2, 2009 - link
You are the one who are lying by claiming that 5870 is a paper launch, when availability at my place is pretty good. Then you claim that I do not actually come from a SE Asia country, but admins in this site can easily verify my IP and see where I come from. Accusing people of lying will not make you look good.SiliconDoc - Thursday, October 1, 2009 - link
Neither does europe, nor africa, nor SA, nor the ME, apparently the only spot is your walk to work. Congratulations, you're at ground zero. Just think how lucky you are.rennya - Friday, October 2, 2009 - link
I am not the who claims GT300 is available, you do with your fudzilla link. And that picture may only have mock-ups because nVidia doesn't have any working demo.At least Intel with its Larabee did showcase their unimpressive raytracing demo with Larabee in IDF.