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Sun, Nov 08, 2009 - 04:16 AM EST  —  AAPL: 194.34 (+0.3099, +0.16%)  |  NASDAQ: 2112.44 (+7.12, +0.34%)

Report: Nvidia working on first GPGPUs for Apple Macs
Friday, January 25, 2008 - 08:44 AM EST

"Graphics chipmaker Nvidia Corp. is in the early developmental stages of its first Mac-bound GPGPUs," AppleInsider reports.

"Short for general-purpose computing on graphics processing units, GPGPUs are a new wave of graphics processors that can be instructed to perform computations previously reserved only for a system's primary CPU, allowing them aid in the speed of non graphics related applications," AppleInsider reports.

"GPGPUs have proven most beneficial in applications requiring intense number crunching, examples of which include high-performance computer clusters, raytracing, scientific computing applications, database operations, cryptography, physics-based simulation engines, and video, audio and digital image processing," AppleInsider reports.

"It's likely that the first Mac-comptaible GPGPUs would turn up as build-to-order options for Apple's Mac Pro workstations due to their ability to aid digital video and audio professionals in sound effects processing, video decoding and post processing," AppleInsider reports.

"Precisely when those cards will crop up is unclear, though Nividia through its Santa Clara, Calif.-based offices this week put out an urgent call for a full time staffer to help design and implement kernel level Mac OS X drivers for the cards," AppleInsider reports.

More info in the full article here.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader "Masa" for the heads up.]

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Jan 25, 08 - 08:51 am Comment from: themanx

Nice!!

How do u disable iphones annoying opening of iphoto everytime i dock it?

Jan 25, 08 - 08:57 am Comment from: HotinPlaya

iPhoto preferences/general

connecting camera opens: select "no application"

Jan 25, 08 - 08:58 am Comment from: peaPod

Schwing.

Jan 25, 08 - 09:18 am Comment from: Ampar

This will be handy for a future revision of the iPod Touch or iPhone when you're waiting in an airport and you want to play around with hypothetical global climate changes, shifting ocean currents, event horizon mapping or just to sequence your genome.


" . . . is in the early developmental stages . . . "
What would that be in Microsoft years? Does anyone have a conversion table nearby?

Jan 25, 08 - 09:21 am Comment from: LinuxGuyAndMacProdigalSon

This is just what I want. I plan to get back into scientific programming and parallel processing. It will be interesting to see how using Nvidia's technology compares in performance with the parallel technology taking advantage of multiple CPU cores using the SSE4 instructions.

Jan 25, 08 - 09:32 am Comment from: Sixvodkas

@Ampar

As a general rule of thumb, I use the "Dog Slow" rate when describing Microsoft, so give them 7 years.

Jan 25, 08 - 09:53 am Comment from: Rasterbater

Nividia put out an urgent call for a full time staffer to help design and implement kernel level Mac OS X drivers for the cards.

Cha Ching!

Jan 25, 08 - 10:15 am Comment from: Spark

Anyone here going to be answering Nvidia's call?

Jan 25, 08 - 10:41 am Comment from: Cubert

Read the article. They state a 45 to 415 TIMES inproved performance - not %!

Is this really possible?

Jan 25, 08 - 10:54 am Comment from: Ryan

The return of the math co-processor! Sweet and totally retro!

Jan 25, 08 - 10:55 am Comment from: Mr. Peabody

It's about time. Seems like graphics card developers have always given Windows boxes the upper hand in this area. I.e., we get some of the same big games and graphics apps as Windows has, but our workstations, while faster at the core, actually output slower because of the graphics bottle neck. So yeah, it's about time.

Jan 25, 08 - 11:47 am Comment from: Tommy Boy

Like any multi-processor solution, doesn't this GPGPU require both OS and Xcode support for applications to take advantage of the speed boost?

If they build it will anyone (be able to) use it?

Jan 25, 08 - 11:48 am Comment from: Tommy Boy

@ themanx: You could do what HotinPlaya wrote or you could just delete the Camera Roll from your iPhone like a normal person would. Insert your iPhone, wait for iPhoto to open, import photos, delete originals, and if there are any pics that you actually want to keep on the phone move those pix to an album that syncs with your phone.

Jan 25, 08 - 01:10 pm Comment from: Roberto

@ Ampar,

1 Apple Year = 1 Googol Microsoft Years

Google googol

Jan 25, 08 - 01:16 pm Comment from: Ampar

Thanks, Sixvodkas and Roberto. I was going to use Excel to figure it out but, well . . . that was a butt well.

Jan 25, 08 - 01:17 pm Comment from: DLMeyer

Indeed! This is "retro", and over-due, and only marginally useful.
Back when this was a high-value feature, anything costing under $10,000 had but a single CPU, and that with a single core. The Amiga had a family of chips that worked together to make the system faster.
So, "it's about time!"
About its current value ... somewhat limited. The primary need for a graphics card is to provide more frames per second than the game player can visualize using more effects than the player can comprehend. We've been working on over-kill for several years now. Way beyond the pale. The graphics card designers need an outlet for the overkill built into their cards, this is one such possibility. Except! All Macs, and many other new systems, feature multiple cores - often on multiple chips. Anything the GPGPU can do can also be done in a second (fourth, eighth) core. Still, if you play games often enough to want such a card, it can offer a third (fifth, ninth) "core" when you are not playing games. That 'last core' being potentially more powerful than any of your others - for heavy math, at least.
Overall, a Good Thing ... but nothing to get worked up over.
Dave M

Jan 25, 08 - 01:52 pm Comment from: Roberto

@ Ampar,

You're on her, Your Honor. rolleyes

Jan 25, 08 - 05:39 pm Comment from: Sixvodkas

@Roberto

She offered her honor, he honored her offer
And all night long in was on'er and off'er

Jan 26, 08 - 07:17 am Comment from: bioness

comeon, who else is here waiting for the quad-core macbook pro

Jan 26, 08 - 01:31 pm Comment from: DLMeyer

Actually, a 24" Al-iMac Quad is on my shopping list, rather than a Quad MB or MBP. The 2.66GHz Core 2 Quad is priced at $277(?) or so and would do wonders! Replace my G5 Dual with no problem, boost my Folding@Home rate by half (at least) and speed my podcasting output as well. My laptop is intended for mobile computing, not desktop replacement, and can get by with a single core on a single CPU ... which doesn't mean a second core would not be welcomed. A Quad would be wasted on the likes of us, with our simple wants and simpler needs.
Dave

Jan 27, 08 - 03:26 pm Comment from: Ryan

Sounds like the DSP from the Quadra AV series meets AltiVec, on a graphics card.

Applications could probably take direct advantage of this hardware (assuming the drivers expose the appropriate hooks) without OS-level support, but the greatest gains would come from Apple updating framework code like Core Animation and NSOperation to use this automatically when available. Then developers calling these frameworks get instant benefit.

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