NVIDIA nTeresting Newsletter - 27 October 2012

In this Issue:

· Windows 8, Windows RT and a pair of Tegra-based Windows RT devices got tested this week.

· Apple picked Kepler for their new iMac PCs.

· NVIDIA takes green seriously.

· CUDA 5 is here to tap Kepler's computational horsepower.

Windows 8 Is Here

Windows 8 hits stores today, which includes Windows RT. By doing so Microsoft is transforming the Windows experience by adding support for touch-screens, adding full hardware acceleration for Windows, and bringing Windows to thin and light mobile devices.

"The new version of Windows, which is available Friday, sees Microsoft tucking the old, desktop-focused Windows skin into its back pocket, and instead donning a colorful, touch-friendly suit of tiles. It's such a grand departure from Redmond's legacy Windows software that most users won't recognize it as Windows at all. And that's a beautiful thing. I've been testing Windows 8 over the last few months, and I've come to really enjoy using it."

This is the first time Windows PCs have been able to take advantage of phenomenally efficient ARM processors like Tegra 3. Windows RT ushers in a new era of exceptionally mobile PCs that offer days of battery life.

"The Windows RT experience, in many senses, is clearly ahead of what many competitors offer in the tablet space today. Multitasking, task switching and the ability to have multiple applications active on the screen at once are all big advantages that Microsoft enjoys. For productivity workloads, Surface is without equal in the tablet space."

Asus, Lenovo and Microsoft have announced Windows RT devices based on Tegra.

"Microsoft is allowing the wraps to slip off of their Windows RT operating system, a branding otherwise known as Window 8 for ARM-driven devices. And interestingly enough, it looks as if NVIDIA has a solid lock on Windows RT tablet market share, as not only Microsoft's Surface but the majority of Windows RT tablets to hit the market today are driven by NVIDIA's Tegra 3 quad-core system on a chip."

Asus VIVO Tab RT reviews hit earlier this week.

"Do Windows RT (and Windows 8) tablets have what it takes to compete in the sea of Android and Apple tablets currently on the market? I would offer that answer is a firm, convincing "yes," absolutely. To be candid, we went into this evaluation with significant skepticism just due to the fact that Android 4.X and iOS have been on the market so long gaining traction and maturity. Now that I've had a week's worth of regular use with the ASUS Vivo Tab RT, in short, I'm sold and in a big way."

And so did Microsoft Surface reviews:

"I have been testing the Surface almost daily for three weeks and I like it. It's beautifully and solidly built and it's the purest expression of Microsoft's new Windows 8 touch-screen operating system which, like the Surface, goes on sale on Friday."

And Tegra stood out in both:

"Powering the device is a 1.3GHz quad-core NVIDIA Tegra 3 CPU, which makes it quite zippy. Simple tasks like browsing through apps, opening up the camera, and transitioning back to the home screen were executed swiftly and smoothly. The tablet and keyboard also run on 25-watt-hour and 22-watt-hour batteries, respectively."

And NVIDIA's GeForce Series of desktop and notebook GPUs are ready for Windows 8 and have had WHQL certified drivers for Windows 8 for weeks before general availability. Look for them in systems from our OEM partners.

"After releasing a beta Windows 8 driver for their graphics cards at the end of August, NVIDIA is now offering a WHQL-certified driver for Windows 8. The GeForce 306.23 driver, released today, is the first WHQL-certified driver from NVIDIA that combines support for Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows Vista."

If you want a traditional PC featuring Windows 8 or a new platform like we see in the new Windows RT devices, NVIDIA has the best solution for you.

iMacs Go With Kepler

Apple announced their new 21.5 inch and 27 inch iMac PC this week. All of the new 2012 iMACs feature NVIDIA GPUs in their base models and Apple is offering upgrades to even more powerful NVIDIA GPUs.

"Just inside the slim new Apple 21.5 and 27-inch iMacs, are NVIDIA GeForce GPUs, based on the new Kepler-class architecture, which helps make them up to 60 percent faster than last year's models."

Apple selected GeForce GPUs for their new iMac systems. It validates the need for a GPU in your computer.

"Apple is synonymous with top-performance, high-quality products, so we suspect that it's no coincidence that the new iMac uses GeForce."

Kepler's unprecedented performance and incredible power efficiency make it perfect for the new iMac line-up and are ideal for sleeker iMacs.

NVIDIA is Green

Newsweek released their fourth annual environmental ranking of the 500 biggest publicly traded companies in America. The Newsweek Green Rankings cuts through the green chatter and compares the actual environmental footprints, management (policies, programs, initiatives, controversies), and reporting practices of big companies. They teamed up with two leading research organizations to create the most comprehensive rankings available. What did they find out about NVIDIA?

"It invented GPUs, the most energy-efficient computer processors on the market. And since 2007, it has diverted 85 percent of its waste from landfills to compost and recycling facilities."

Newsweek named NVIDIA the sixth-greenest publicly-traded company in the United States today, up four spots from last year's ranking. Read more on our blog.

CUDA 5 Taps Kepler's Power

This week NVIDIA launched the production release of the CUDA 5 programming model. Dr. Dobbs writes:

"CUDA 5 has been designed to take advantage of the NVIDIA Kepler compute architecture. A technical PDF on the company's website refers to Kepler as a GPU comprised of 7.1 billion transistors to produce a "computational workhorse" with teraflops of integer, single precision and double precision performance, and the highest memory bandwidth."

Learn more about CUDA 5 from this InsideHPC Slidecast.

"CUDA is a parallel computing platform and programming model invented by NVIDIA. It enables dramatic increases in computing performance by harnessing the power of the graphics processing unit (GPU). With millions of CUDA-enabled GPUs sold to date, software developers, scientists and researchers are finding broad-ranging uses for GPU computing with CUDA."