Slashdot Log In
Nvidia CEO "Not Afraid" of CPU-GPU Hybrids
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Fri Apr 11, 2008 03:02 PM
from the you-don't-scare-me dept.
from the you-don't-scare-me dept.
J. Dzhugashvili writes "Is Nvidia worried about the advent of both CPUs with graphics processor cores and Larrabee, Intel's future discrete graphics processor? Judging by the tone adopted by Nvidia's CEO during a financial analyst conference yesterday, not quite. Huang believes CPU-GPU hybrids will be no different (and just as slow) as today's integrated graphics chipsets, and he thinks people will still pay for faster Nvidia GPUs. Regarding Larrabee, Huang says Nvidia is going to 'open a can of whoop-ass' on Intel, and that Intel's strategy of reinventing the wheel by ignoring years of graphics architecture R&D is fundamentally flawed. Nvidia also has some new hotness in the pipeline, such as its APX 2500 system-on-a-chip for handhelds and a new platform for VIA processors."
Related Stories
[+]
Nvidia Physics Engine Almost Complete 179 comments
Nvidia has stated that their translation of Ageia's physics engine to CUDA is almost complete. To showcase the capabilities of the new tech Nvidia ran a particle demonstration similar to Intel's Nehalem demo, at ten times the speed. "While Intel's Nehalem demo had 50,000-60,000 particles and ran at 15-20 fps (without a GPU), the particle demo on a GeForce 9800 card resulted in 300 fps. In the very likely event that Nvidia's next-gen parts (G100: GT100/200) will double their shader units, this number could top 600 fps, meaning that Nehalem at 2.53 GHz is lagging 20-40x behind 2006/2007/2008 high-end GPU hardware. However, you can't ignore the fact that Nehalem in fact can run physics."
[+]
Technology: Why AMD Could Win The Coming Visual Computing Battle 161 comments
Vigile writes "The past week has been rampant with discussion on the new war that is brewing between NVIDIA and Intel, but there was one big player left out of the story: AMD. It would seem that both sides have written this competitor off, but PC Perspective thinks quite the opposite. The company is having financial difficulties, but AMD already has the technologies that both NVIDIA and Intel are striving to build or acquire: mainstream CPU, competitive GPU, high quality IGP solutions and technology for hybrid processing. This article postulates that both Intel and NVIDIA are overlooking a still-competitive opponent, which could turn out to be a drastic mistake."
[+]
Technology: The Future According To nVidia 132 comments
NerdMaster writes "Last week nVidia held their Spring 2008 Editor's day, where they presented their forthcoming series of graphics processing units. While the folks at Hardware Secrets couldn't tell the details of the new chips, they posted some ideas of what nVidia is seeing as the future of computing. Basically more GPGPU usage, with the system CPU losing its importance, and the co-existence of ray-tracing and rasterization on future video cards and games. In other words, the 'can of whoop-ass' nVidia has promised to open on Intel."
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
Intel? (Score:4, Funny)
In other news, Aston Martin makes better cars than Hyundai!
Ray tracing for the win (Score:5, Informative)
Ray vs raster. The reason we have so much tech in Raster is because processing was not sufficient to do ray. If it had been we'd have never started down the raster branch of development because it just doesn't work as well. The results are not as realistic with raster. Shadows don't look right. You can't do csg. You get edge effects. There are a thousand work-arounds for things like reflections of reflections, lens effects and audio reflections. Raster is a hack and when we have the CPU to do the real time ray tracing rendering raster composition will go away.
Raster was a way to make some fairly believable (if cartoonish) video games. They still require some deliberate suspension-of-disbelief. Only with raytracing do you get the surreal Live-or-memorex feeling of not being able to tell a rendered scene from a photo, except for the fact that the realistic scene depicts something that might be physically impossible.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
For instance, modern GUIs often use the 3d hardware to handle window transforms, blending and placement. These are fundamentally polygonal objects for which triangle transformation and rasterization is a perfectly appropriate tool and ray tracing would be silly.
The current polygon model will never vanish completely, even if high-end graphics eventually go to ray tracing instead.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't buy the 'raytracing is so much better than raster' argument. I do agree that it makes it algorithmically simpler to create near-photorealistic renders, but that doesn't mean that raster's only redeeming quality is that it's less burdensome for simpler scenes.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The fact is that "artificial" raster shadows, lighting and reflections typically look more impressive than the "more realistic" results of ray tracing. This alone explains why raster will maintain its dominance, and why ray tracing will not catch on.
Re:Ray tracing for the win (Score:5, Informative)
Raytracing doesnt magically get you better image quality. EXCEPT for shadows, the results look just like rasterization. As usual, people mix up raytracing with path tracing, photon mapping, radiosity, and other GI algorithms. Note: GI can be applied to rasterization as well.
So, which "benefits" are left? Refraction/reflection, haze, and any kind of ray distortion - SECONDARY ray effects. Primary rays can be fully modeled with rasterization, which gives you much better performance because of the trivial cache coherency and simpler calculations. (In a sense, rasterization can be seen as a cleverly optimized primary-ray-pass). This is why hybrid renderers make PERFECT sense. Yes, I know ray bundles, they are hard to get right, and again: for primary rays, raytracing makes no sense.
"Suspension of disbelief" is necessary with raytracing too. You confuse the rendering technique with lighting models, animation quality and so on. "edge effects" is laughable, aliasing WILL occur with raytracing as well unless you shoot multiple rays per pixel (and guess what... rasterizers commonly HAVE MSAA).
Jeez, when will people stop thinking all this BS about raytracing? As if it were a magical thingie capable of miracously enhancing your image quality....
Raytracing has its place - as an ADDITION to a rasterizer, to ease implementation of the secondary ray effects (which are hard to simulate with pure rasterization). This is the future.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Ray tracing for the win (Score:4, Insightful)
Perhaps the limitation is in the ability of the humans to model the scene rather than the ability of the computer to render it.
Parent
Re:Ray tracing for the win (Score:5, Insightful)
The reason we can so easily tell the difference between CGI creatures and real creatures is not the photorealism of it, but the animation. Evaluate a screen cap of Lord of the Rings with Gollum in it, and then evaluate that entire scene in motion. The screen cap will look astonishingly realistic compared to the video.
Computers are catching up to the computational challenges of rendering scenes, but humans haven't quite yet figured out how to program every muscle movement living creatures make. Attempts for complete realism in 3D animation still fall somewhere in the Uncanny Valley [wikipedia.org].
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Can't say that's necessarily a good thing, but I guess Ford wanted the money.
And yeah, Hyundais are better built than Astons. But Astons are better in many other regards of course.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
nVidia should be very careful that they don't make the same mistake a
More Details On The Call, Here (Score:2, Offtopic)
Multi Core GPUs (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Let's Face It (Score:3, Insightful)
NOTHING to do with existing games. (Score:5, Informative)
If Intel is right, there won't be much of an effect on existing games.
Intel is focusing on raytracers, something Crytek has specifically said that they will not do. Therefore, both Crysis and any sequels won't really see any improvement from Intel's approach.
If Intel is right, what we are talking about is the Crysis-killer -- a game that looks and plays much better than Crysis (and maybe with a plot that doesn't completely suck [penny-arcade.com]), and only on Intel hardware, not on nVidia.
Oh, and Beryl has been killed and merged. It's just Compiz now, and Compiz Fusion if you need more.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
ATI and Nvidia do not. I know who I'm rooting for to come up with a good hardware...
Interesting comments in the call (Score:2)
Did anyone expect him to surrender? (Score:5, Insightful)
Is Creative still around? Last I heard, they were making MP3 players...
He should be afraid (Score:5, Interesting)
My Mac mini has a maximum load of 110W. That's the Core 2 Duo CPU, the integrated GMA950, 3GB of RAM, a 2.5" drive and a DVD burner, not to mention FireWire 400 and four USB 2.0 ports under maximum load (the FW400 port being 8W alone).
Granted the GMA950 sucks compared to nVidia's current offerings, however do they have any plans for low-power GPUs? I'm pretty sure the whole company can't survive on the FPS-crazed game players revenues alone.
They should start thinking about asking intel to integrate their (current) laptop GPUs into intel CPUs.
Re:He should be afraid (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
For ultimate low power, there's the future VIA/Nvidia hookup: http://www.dailytech.com/NVIDIA%20Promises%20Powerful%20Sub45%20Processing%20Platform%20to%20Counter%20Intel/article11452.htm [dailytech.com]
Sigh (Score:3, Informative)
The PC is just a toy (Score:4, Insightful)
Can't we all just get along? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Translation: "nVidia needs a better top manager." (Score:2, Funny)
This is a VERY SERIOUS problem for the entire world. There are apparently no people available who have both technical understanding and social sophistication.
Huang is obviously ethnic Chinese. It is likely he is imitating something he heard in a movie or TV show. He certainly did not realize that only ignorant angry people use that phrase.
Translating, that phrase, and the boasting in general, says to me: "Huang must be fired. nVid
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Translation: "nVidia needs a better top manager (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe he was out of chairs?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Yeah, them slanty-eyed furriners just can't speak English right, can they?
Huang is over 40 years old and has lived in the US since he was a child. Idiot.
Re: (Score:2)
Okay, here is more detail about why he is foolish. (Score:4, Interesting)
Quote from the article: "Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang was quite vocal on those fronts, arguing hybrid chips that mix microprocessor and graphics processor cores will be no different from systems that include Intel or AMD integrated graphics today."
My opinion: There would be no need for all the talk if there were no chance of competition. Everyone knows there will be new competition from Intel Larabee and AMD/ATI. Everyone knows that "no different" is a lie. Lying exposes the Nvidia CEO as a weak man.
"... he explained that Nvidia is continuously reinventing itself and that it will be two architectural refreshes beyond the current generation of chips before Larrabee launches."
The entire issue is that Intel+Larabee and AMD+ATI will make Nvidia irrelevant for most users. The GPU will be on the motherboard. Nvidia will sell only to gamers who are willing to pay extra, a lot extra.
"Huang also raised the prospect of application and API-level compatibility problems with Larrabee. Intel has said Larrabee will support the DirectX 10 and OpenGL application programming interfaces just like current AMD and Nvidia GPUs, but Huang seemed dubious Intel could deliver on that front."
Intel, in this case, is Intel and Microsoft working together. Both are poorly managed companies in many ways, but they are both managed well enough to insure that the Microsoft product works with the Intel hardware. Sure, it is an easy guess that Microsoft will release several buggy versions, because Microsoft has a history of treating its customers as though they were beta testers, but eventually everything will work correctly.
'[NVidia VP] Tamasi went on to shoot down Intel's emphasis on ray tracing, which the chipmaker has called "the future for games." '
Ray tracing is certainly the future for games, there is no question about that. The question is when, because the processor power required is huge. It's my guess, but an easy guess, that Mr. Tamasi is lying; he is apparently trying to take advantage of the ignorance of financial analists.
"Additionally, Tamasi believes rasterization is inherently more scalable than ray tracing. He said running a ray tracer on a cell phone is "hard to conceive."
This is apparently another attempt to confuse the financial analyists, who often have only a pretend interest in technical things. Anyone understanding the statement knows it is nonsense. No one is suggesting that there will be ray-tracing on cell phones. My opinion is that this is another lie.
"We're gonna be highly focused on bringing a great experience to people who care about it," he explained, adding that Nvidia hardware simply isn't for everyone."
That was a foolish thing to say. That's the whole issue! In the future, Nvidia's sales will drop because "Nvidia hardware simply isn't for everyone." Most computers will not have separate video adapters, whereas they did before. Only powerful game machines will need to by from Nvidia.
'Huang added, "I would build CPUs if I could change the world [in doing so]." ' Later in the article, it says, "Nvidia is readying a platform to accompany VIA's next-generation Isaiah processor, which should fight it out with Intel's Atom in the low-cost notebook and desktop arena"
Translation: Before, every desktop computer needed a video adapter, which came from a company different than the CPU maker, a company like Nvidia. Now, the video adapters will be mostly supplied by CPU makers. In response, Nvidia will start making low-end CPUs. It is questionable whether Nvidia can compete with Intel and AMD making any kind of CPU.
Parent
ouch (Score:3, Informative)
If you don't believe Intel will ever compete with Nvidia, now is probably a good time to buy. NVDA has a forward P/E of 14. That's a "value stock" price for a leading tech company... you don't get opportunities like that often. NVDA also has no debt on the books, so the credit crunch does not directly affect them.
I think AMD has a better plan (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
And if you decide to bump it up a notch and buy a 3450 it operates in Hybrid Crossfire so your onboard graphics aren't totally disabled. Explain to me how that isn't cool?
Can of Whoop Ass?? (Score:3, Interesting)
The risk for NVidia isn't that Intel will surpass them, or even necessarily approach their best performance. The risk is that Intel might start catching up, cutting (further) into NVidia's market share.
AMD's acquisition of ATI seems to imply that they see tight integration of graphics to be at least cheaper for a given level of performance, or higher performance for a given price. Apply that same reasoning to Intel, since they certainly aren't likely to let AMD have that advantage all to themselves.
Now try to apply that logic to NVidia - what are they going to do, merge with a distant-last-place x86 maker?
Just like the FPU (Score:5, Interesting)
Such FPU's do not exist today.
I think Nvidia should be worried about this.
The problem... (Score:3, Interesting)
CPU+GPU is mostly a cost-cutting measure (Score:3, Interesting)
Nobody expects the CPU+GPU to yield gaming performance worth a damn, because the two big companies that are looking into this amalgam both have underperforming graphics technology. Do they both make excellent budget solutions ? Yes they certainly do, but for those who crave extreme speed, the only option is NVidia.
That said, not everyone plays shooters. Back in my retail days, I'd say I moved 50 times more bottom-end GPUs than top-end ones. Those Radeon 9250s were $29.99 piles of alien poop, but cheap poop is enough for the average norm. The only people who spent more than $100 on a video card were teenagers and comic book guys (and of course, my awesome self).
Meanwhile, in the corporate world (Score:3, Interesting)
I have done CAD/CAM for ages, and my P3-750 with a Quadro4 700XGL isn't noticeably slower than a P4-3.4 with a Radeon X300SE running Unigraphics NX 5. I have a P3-500 with a QuadroFX-1000 card that freaking flies running CATIA V5. Again, in contrast, my 1.8GHz P4 laptop with integrated Intel graphics sucks balls running either UG or CATIA.
Speaking for the workstation users out there, please keep making high performance GPUs, Nvidia.
Re:Not scared... no kidding? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes I know they got bought by AMD, but they still exist and they still make GPUs AFAIK.
And if your argument is that nVidia is better than ATI, let me remind you that ATI/nVidia and intel/AMD keep leapfrogging each other every few years.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
AMD is in a world of hurt right now, with Intel consistently maintaining a lead over them in the CPU segment, and NVIDIA maintaining a lead over them in the GPU segment. They're doing some interesting, synergistic things between the CPU and GPU sides, but who knows if that'll pan out. Meanwhile, they're being for
Re:Not scared... no kidding? (Score:4, Insightful)
Competitive enough anyway. Long as I'm still on AGP, I'm still getting ATI cards (nVidia's agp offerings have classically been highly crippled beyond just running on AGP). But sure, I'm a niche, and truth be told, my next system will probably have nVidia.
But gamer video cards aren't everything, and I daresay not even the majority. If you have a flatscreen TV, chances are good it's got ATI parts in it. Then there's laptops and integrated video, nothing to sneeze at.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Quite true. With the 8500 and 8600 models, and now the 9500, nVidia trounces AMD even on budget cards.
But, nVidia got pummeled prior to their acquisition of Yahoo!^H^H^H^H^H^H Voodoo, and the two were quite neck and neck for a long time. So it's more of "the tables have turned (again)" rather than "they have no competition."
Until AMD completely quits making higher-end video cards, nVidia will have to keep on doing something to stay competitive. Same thing with Firefox - I don't think IE8 would have l
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I haven't, but I have heard of Carmack, and Carmack " seems to think that Intel's direction using traditional ray tracing methods is not going to work [slashdot.org]." I didn't understand anything in that article, but assuming that the blurb was correct (and Carmack didn't seem to refute it in the 3 times he replied to that story), then I'd say that they may not be "less and less interested" but maybe they are "less and less right about the direction to take." Take your pick.
And while my little blurb may have been fund
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Let's examine this statement:
"Bus and train integration is quite logical progression of technology. There are things the plane is not optimal and same goes to the bus. It seems that when combined, they prove successful. So let's put wings on a bus."
Now, I think there are plenty of good reasons why CPU/GPU integration is a
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
By the way, onboard video uses about as much RAM as a browser will use (And about as much as Win98 needs to boot in, but I digr