NVIDIA nTeresting Newsletter - 10 August 2012

In this Issue:

· 3D Vision helps NASA explore Mars.

· Quadro has released an array of new workstation solutions based on the Kepler architecture.

· The new Kepler-based Quadro workstation solutions have spun up a new Maximus platform.

· The list of the ‘Most Powerful People in Gaming' includes NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang.

Mars Needs 3D Vision

The Mars rover, Curiosity, has been all over the news this week. NASA wasted no time in sending back 3D stereoscopic imagery to Earth.

"To start with, Curiosity has stereoscopic cameras all over it, which means it sees in 3D. That's not just so we can get a way trippier look at the red planet, it's so the rover can build three-dimensional maps of the area around it, populating it with surfaces and textures. This level of detail greatly enhances the rover's hazard-avoidance capabilities, taking the pressure off the human drivers to watch out of the problems that have come up in the past."

To view the 3D images, the folks at Jet Propulsion Laboratory use NVIDIA 3D Vision. You can view the images here, or watch a video of the story and see 3D Vision in action here.

Quadro Goes Kepler

At Siggraph this week, NVIDIA launched our latest generation of NVIDIA Quadro Mobile Workstation professional graphics solutions which are based on the Kepler architecture.

"Mobile workstations get an array of intense new GPUs, too, because hey, just because you're animating a film or designing a bridge doesn't mean you don't want to sit at a Starbucks while you work every once in a while. The latest Quadro mobile GPUs boast double the CUDA cores of the last generation and feature large frame buffers and GPU memories, AA enhancements, DisplayPort 1.2 with support for resolutions up to 3840x2160 (60Hz), and bindless textures."

It didn't take long for OEMs to jump on board, Dell, Fujitsu, HP, and Lenovo, have already announced and are now shipping their new 15.6" and 17.3" mobile workstation platforms featuring these latest Quadro Mobile products, and most include NVIDIA Optimus^TM Technology.

Meanwhile, the competition's latest workstation solutions did not fair so well in reviews.

"To be perfectly candid, we found the W8000 and W9000's performance disappointing, and their proposed price/performance ratio isn't so hot either. If AMD had kept to its previous price structure, the W9000 would've slipped in nicely at $2500 and the W8000 at $1149. At $4000 and $1600 against the Quadro 6000 (also $4000) and the Quadro 5000 ($1849) though, AMD's prospects at this time aren't very good.

Kepler in Quadroland is big news.

Maximus Gets Maxed

NVIDIA Maximus technology combines the visualization and interactive design capability of NVIDIA Quadro GPUs and the high-performance computing power of NVIDIA Tesla GPUs in a single workstation. On an NVIDIA Maximus system, the Tesla GPU companion processor performs the heavy lifting of photorealistic rendering or engineering simulation computation. This frees up CPU resources for the work they are best suited for while freeing the Quadro GPU to exclusively power rich, full-performance, interactive design, with the ability to do design and rendering or simulation simultaneously on a Maximus-powered workstation.

It got better this week when it got Kepler.

"For the media and entertainment industry, Maximus gives digital content creators more freedom and creative flexibility. Film editors and animators can work in realtime on challenging projects, create complex simulations and interactive visual effects, and work in 3D texture painting workflows without being constrained by a maximum number of textures. Chaos Group and A52 are two studios that have already put Maximus technology to use in their respective workflows."

Most Powerful People in Gaming

Kotaku has a list of the most powerful people in game. NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang makes the list at 24.

"NVIDIA doesn't just make discrete graphics cards for PC gaming powernerds (although they're still taking AMD and Intel to school on a regular basis). Their "Tegra" line of mobile chips are in millions of phones and tablets. That makes NVIDA incredibly well-placed for the future, with a thriving desktop and laptop business as a partner to Intel-and a mobile business that's aiming right where Intel should already have been."