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 - Wednesday, September 30, 2009 - link
I'm sure Anand brought it out of him with his bias.Already on page one, we see the UNFAIR comparison to RV870, and after wailing Fermi "not double the bandwidth" - we get ZERO comparison, because of course, ATI loses BADLY.
Let me help:
NVIDIA : 240 G bandwidth
ati : 153 G bandwidth
------------------------nvidia
---------------ati
There's the bandwidth comparison, that the biased author couldn't bring himself to state. When ati LOSES, the red fans ALWAYS make NO CROSS COMPANY comparison.
Instead it's "nvidia relates to it's former core as ati relates to it's former core - so then "amount of improvement" "within in each company" can be said to "be similar" while the ACTUAL STAT is "OMITTED !
---
Congratulations once again for the immediate massive bias. Just wonderful.
omitted bandwith chart below, the secret knowledge the article cannot state ! LOL a review and it cannot state the BANDWITH of NVIDIA's new card! roflmao !
------------------------nvidia
---------------ati
NVIDIA WINS BY A VERY LARGE PERCENTAGE.
konjiki7 - Friday, October 2, 2009 - link
http://www.hardocp.com/news/2009/10/02/nvidia_fake...">http://www.hardocp.com/news/2009/10/02/..._fakes_f...
Samus - Thursday, October 1, 2009 - link
Thats great and all nVidia has more available bandwidth but....they're not anywhere close to using it (much like ATi) so exactly what is your point?SiliconDoc - Friday, October 2, 2009 - link
Wow, another doofus. Overclock the 5870's memory only, and watch your framerates rise. Overclocking the memory increases the bandwith, hence the use of it. If frames don't rise, it's not using it, doesn't need it, and extra is present.THAT DOESN'T HAPPEN for 5870.
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Now, since FERMI has 40% more T in core, and an enourmous amount of astounding optimizations, you declare it won't use the bandwith, but your excuse was your falsehood about ati not using it's bandwith, which is 100% incorrect.
Let's pretend you meant GT200, same deal there, higher mem oc= more band and frames rise well.
Better luck next time, since you were 100% wrong.
mm2587 - Thursday, October 1, 2009 - link
you do realize the entire point of mentioning bandwidth was to show that both Nvidia and AMD feel that they are not currently bandwidth limited. They have each doubled their number of cores but only increased bandwidth by ~%50. Theres no mention of overall bandwidth because thats not the point that was being made. Just an off hand observation that says "hey looks like everyone feels memory bandwidth wasn't the limitation last time around"Zingam - Thursday, October 1, 2009 - link
ATI has it here and has it now! NVIDIA does not win because on paper I have 50 billion transistors GPU on 1 nm process! I win! ;)You are a retarded fanboy! And I am not. I'd buy what's best for my money.
SiliconDoc - Thursday, October 1, 2009 - link
Behold the FERMI GPU unbeliever !http://www.fudzilla.com/content/view/15762/1/">http://www.fudzilla.com/content/view/15762/1/
That's called, COMPLETED CARD, RUNNING SILICON.
Better luck next time incorrect ignorant whining looner.
siyabongazulu - Friday, October 2, 2009 - link
Do you see any captions on that site? I don't think so. Nowhere does it mention that it's a complete card. So please stop lying because that goes to show how ignorant you are. Any person with a sound mind can and will tell you that it's not a finished product. So come up with something more valid to show and rant about. Sorry that your big daddy Heung hasn't given you your green slime if you like it that way. Just wait on the corner and when he says, GT300 is a go and tests confirm that it trumps 5870 then you can stop crying and suck on that.silverblue - Thursday, October 1, 2009 - link
When's it coming out?I mean, you have all the answers.
SiliconDoc - Thursday, October 1, 2009 - link
Well thanks for the vote of confidence, but yesterday on the launch, according to the author, right ?LOL
Ha, golly, what a pile.