multi-GPU | KitGuru https://www.kitguru.net KitGuru.net - Tech News | Hardware News | Hardware Reviews | IOS | Mobile | Gaming | Graphics Cards Fri, 22 Nov 2019 09:54:50 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 https://www.kitguru.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/cropped-KITGURU-Light-Background-SQUARE2-32x32.png multi-GPU | KitGuru https://www.kitguru.net 32 32 Nvidia is developing a new multi-GPU tiled rendering technique for Turing cards https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/joao-silva/nvidia-is-developing-a-new-multi-gpu-tiled-rendering-technique-for-turing-cards/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/joao-silva/nvidia-is-developing-a-new-multi-gpu-tiled-rendering-technique-for-turing-cards/#respond Fri, 22 Nov 2019 08:21:22 +0000 https://www.kitguru.net/?p=437455 Tile-based rendering isn't new to NVIDIA GPUs, but tile-based rendering in multi-GPU systems is another thing- and it looks like the building blocks are already secretly in place in Nvidia's drivers.

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Tile-based rendering isn't new to NVIDIA GPUs, but tile-based rendering in multi-GPU systems is another thing. It seems this rendering technique is already in place in Nvidia's driver, but it doesn't look like there's any way for developers to implement it in their games just yet.

A user from 3DCenter.org‘s forum, named Blaire, has found evidence in Nvidia's GPU drivers that a MultiGPU rendering mode has been added. This rendering technique is named CFR, which could be short for “checkered frame rendering” or “checkerboard frame rendering” according to TechPowerUp.

As with any tiled rendering method, a frame is divided into smaller squares called tiles, similar to a checkerboard. In CFR's case, the tiles from the frame should be shared between multiple GPUs, unlike SFR – split frame rendering – which divides a frame by two equal parts, and AFR – alternate frame rendering – in which frames are calculated alternatively.

CFR will, supposedly, offer less micro-stutter and optimized resource allocation, when compared to AFR.

The requirements for NVIDIA CFR, according to 3DCenter, are:

  • DirectX 10/11/12
  • NVLink
  • Turing-based NVIDIA graphics cards (with NVLink)

You can force CFR through nvidiaProfileInspector, but it still has a lot of compatibility issues, which is to be expected from a still unofficial feature.

KitGuru says: Checkerboard rendering techniques have been used a lot lately, and consoles use it to produce upscaled resolutions, up to 4K. What do you think of this technique? 

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The latest Radeon driver update focuses on improving multi-GPU performance for Vega https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/matthew-wilson/the-latest-radeon-driver-update-focuses-on-improving-multi-gpu-performance-for-vega/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/matthew-wilson/the-latest-radeon-driver-update-focuses-on-improving-multi-gpu-performance-for-vega/#comments Thu, 21 Sep 2017 17:18:13 +0000 https://www.kitguru.net/?p=347286 Multi-GPU users will find plenty to be pleased about with AMD's latest Radeon Software update. Version 17.9.2 will begin rolling out today and offers up some big performance gains when using a pair of RX Vega 56 or RX Vega 64 GPUs. Using Radeon Software version 17.9.2, the folks over at AMD's performance labs measured …

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Multi-GPU users will find plenty to be pleased about with AMD's latest Radeon Software update. Version 17.9.2 will begin rolling out today and offers up some big performance gains when using a pair of RX Vega 56 or RX Vega 64 GPUs.

Using Radeon Software version 17.9.2, the folks over at AMD's performance labs measured a hefty performance improvement while running RX Vega 64 in mGPU mode, with gains as high as 80 percent. You can see the frame rates AMD is reporting in the graph below:

It might not be a perfect doubling of performance when adding a second GPU to the mix but an 80 percent gain is considered very good. Unfortunately, the exact resolution isn't mentioned but judging by the single-GPU results, I would guess these games are running at 4K. I have sent an email to our AMD contact for further clarification on this.

We didn't hear much about Vega running in CrossFire at launch but it seems the Radeon engineers have been working hard on getting it up to speed following launch. If you can manage to get your hands on two Vega GPUs for your rig, then it looks like for some games at least, you should be getting some decent performance improvements.

KitGuru Says: Have many of you managed to get your hands on an RX Vega GPU yet? Are you thinking about adding a second one to your system?

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Nvidia’s latest driver optimises for Prey and brings multi-GPU support to Gears 4 https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/drivers/matthew-wilson/nvidias-latest-driver-optimises-for-prey-and-brings-multi-gpu-support-to-gears-4/ https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/drivers/matthew-wilson/nvidias-latest-driver-optimises-for-prey-and-brings-multi-gpu-support-to-gears-4/#comments Thu, 04 May 2017 17:18:40 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=332883 As many of you know by now, Bethesda and Arkane Studios' Prey reboot is launching in less than 24 hours and at this point, the developers have spent a lot of time trying to big up the PC version. As with any major game release, this also means it is time for a GPU driver …

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As many of you know by now, Bethesda and Arkane Studios' Prey reboot is launching in less than 24 hours and at this point, the developers have spent a lot of time trying to big up the PC version. As with any major game release, this also means it is time for a GPU driver update, with Nvidia's latest Game Ready driver focussing on optimisations for Prey as well as multi-GPU support for Gears of War 4.

Nvidia's engineers have been working on tweaking performance for Prey, so GeForce GPU users will want to use this driver if they are planning on picking up the game this week. On top of that, some additional performance benefits are packed in for Battlezone, which is a VR game releasing this week.

Finally, Nvidia has recently vowed to continue supporting and optimising for ongoing multiplayer games. We first saw this with Heroes of the Storm 2.0, which was revisited in a driver last month due to the game's 2.0 update.

Now, Gears of War 4 is getting that same treatment, as the game is set to get an extensive update this month. With this driver coupled with the game's May update, you will finally be able to use multiple GPUs to gain a performance edge in Gears of War 4. The game is also getting two extra maps.

KitGuru Says: I'm looking forward to giving Prey a go myself when it comes out tomorrow. Are any of you planning on playing through Prey this week? Do any of you happen to still be playing Gears 4? Given how good that game was on PC, I would love to revisit it and test its multi-GPU performance at some point. 

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AMD driver update adds Frame Pacing for multi-GPUs https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/jon-martindale/amd-driver-update-adds-frame-pacing-for-multi-gpus/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/jon-martindale/amd-driver-update-adds-frame-pacing-for-multi-gpus/#respond Thu, 06 Oct 2016 11:12:45 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=307984 AMD has introduced a new feature for its latest driver release, Radeon Crimson Edition 16.10.1, that will be of benefit to anyone running more than one AMD graphics card. It's called Frame Pacing and when DirectX 12 games can take advantage of it, it should make the overall experience much smoother. Frame pacing comes in …

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AMD has introduced a new feature for its latest driver release, Radeon Crimson Edition 16.10.1, that will be of benefit to anyone running more than one AMD graphics card. It's called Frame Pacing and when DirectX 12 games can take advantage of it, it should make the overall experience much smoother.

Frame pacing comes in to play when using alternative frame rendering, or AFR, to split the workload between GPUs. This allows the first to render one frame, and the second the next, alternating back and forth – hence the name.

framepacing

The problem of course though, is that some frames take longer to render than others, due to the complexities of the engine, or what is being shown on screen at any one time. So how do you prevent that from leading to stuttering or incomplete animations? The answer from AMD's end of things, is frame pacing.

Essentially it's a software algorithm that detects when there are discrepancies in GPU rendering and corrects them, ensuring that frames are delivered at the appropriate times, to give a smooth experience.

But don't take our world for it, here's ex TechReport head Scott Wasson, to explain it:

[yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voCapB43F0k']

Of course this is a feature that will require support under DirectX 12. AMD mentioned titles include 3D Mark: Time Spy, Rise of the Tomb Raider, and Total War: Warhammer. It will be interesting to see if this feature has much of an effect in games which use different crossfire rendering modes.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: Any of you multi-GPU users think this will help improve the smoothness of your gaming experience?

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Exclusive Multi-GPU DX12 Frame Pacing Interview with AMD’s Scott Wasson https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/luke-hill/exclusive-multi-gpu-dx12-frame-pacing-interview-with-amds-scott-wasson/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/luke-hill/exclusive-multi-gpu-dx12-frame-pacing-interview-with-amds-scott-wasson/#comments Tue, 04 Oct 2016 16:26:09 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=307577 KitGuru was recently given the chance to fire some questions over to AMD's Scott Wasson on the topic of frame pacing for multi-GPU (mGPU) configurations using DirectX 12. Frame pacing has long been an issue for enthusiasts wanting smooth gameplay from their multi-GPU configurations. High frame rates are one aspect of an enjoyable gaming experience, …

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KitGuru was recently given the chance to fire some questions over to AMD's Scott Wasson on the topic of frame pacing for multi-GPU (mGPU) configurations using DirectX 12.

Frame pacing has long been an issue for enthusiasts wanting smooth gameplay from their multi-GPU configurations. High frame rates are one aspect of an enjoyable gaming experience, but it's important that those frames are delivered in a smooth and consistent manner. This is where frame times have been put into the spotlight in recent years, with the industry demanding an approach to delivering frames with a consistent interval in order to create a smooth gameplay experience.

This interview discusses the frame pacing work that AMD is putting into its multi-GPU solutions in a DX12 gaming environment.

A Short Introduction to DirectX 12 from AMD's Sasa Marinkovic:

DX12’s key benefit is probably how it allows developers to talk to modern graphics hardware on its own terms. GPUs' hardware has matured in recent generations, and the older APIs were built in part around older chips that required different assumptions.

DirectX 12 should have less inherent CPU overhead, which could allow games to run smoothly on less expensive CPUs. DX12 also offers improved threading, so games can potentially take better advantage of multiple CPU cores. On the graphics side of things, DX12 supports a number of new GPU hardware capabilities that can speed up pixel processing and enable new rendering techniques. For instance, a feature called async compute shaders allows lightweight tasks to run concurrently with the main graphics thread, keeping those big shader arrays on today’s GPUs more fully occupied.

One area where DX12 offers more control is when a game uses multiple GPUs together to produce its images. If they wish, developers can explicitly assign work to GPUs of different brands and sizes in the same system, and they can combine the output from all of these GPUs into a final image. Developers also have the option of using more traditional GPU pairings where two same-sized GPUs share the load. In that case, AMD can offer an assist with a feature call frame pacing, which helps to ensure smoother animation with multiple GPUs. Today, AMD is announcing that it’s extending its support for frame pacing to DirectX12 applications.

In the YouTube video below, Scott Wasson discusses DX12 multi-GPU frame pacing with visual aids.

[yframe url='https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voCapB43F0k&feature=youtu.be']

From this point onwards, our questions were directed to AMD's Scott Wasson.

KitGuru:

– In both simple terminology and more technical terminology, tell our readers what DX12 Frame Pacing is and why it is so important for mGPU usage scenarios.

Scott Wasson – AMD:

You may have heard that DirectX 12 offers developers some new choices for dealing with loading balancing between multiple GPUs. The very nifty MDA [Ed. Multi-Display Adapter] mode allows developers to take explicit control of different sizes and brands of GPUs and use them to render a frame.

The frame-pacing feature we're introducing for DirectX 12 deals with a more conventional scenario with LDA [Ed. Linked Display Adapter] mode, where two evenly matched GPUs divide up the work using a load-balancing method called alternate-frame rendering, or AFR for short. In essence, frame-pacing works to ensure smoother animation with AFR load-balancing.

To go a bit deeper, with AFR, the workload is divided across two GPUs in interleaved fashion. The first GPU renders the first complete frame, and the second GPU renders the next frame. Then we go back to the first GPU for the third frame, and so on.

AFR is by far the most widely used load-balancing method in DirectX 11 and earlier because it offers up to 2X performance scaling. But AFR has a potential drawback: the two GPUs can go out of sync. When that happens, frames from GPU 1 and GPU 2 can arrive at the display at almost the exact same time.

Without frame pacing, what you might see from AFR is a pattern of frame-to-frame intervals that looks something like this: 30 ms, 2 ms, 30 ms, 2 ms, 30 ms, 2 ms.

With this sort of elliptical display pattern, the second GPU isn't adding much to the smoothness of the animation. Our frame-pacing feature corrects the timing of displayed frames, so the pattern would look more like this: 16 ms, 16 ms, 16 ms, 16 ms, 16 ms, 16 ms.

That corrected pattern can result in much smoother perceived animation. We've supported frame-pacing for older graphics APIs for a number of years. Now, we're extending this support to DirectX 12 applications that choose to use AFR.

Desktop users with two matched Radeon GPUs, like dual Radeon RX 480s, should see the benefits of this feature in DX12 games that use AFR.

2x-rx-480

– How does AMD's DX12 Frame Pacing implementation compare to what ‘the competition' offers?

Our position is to support robust AFR load-balancing in DirectX 12 and to enable developers to use it across our product stack, including in the very affordable Polaris products, from the Radeon RX 460 to the RX 480. From what I've read, our competition has removed SLI support from this class of products, so comparisons are hard to make. I believe their more expensive GPUs have a frame-metering capability.

– AMD looked to be performing well in DX12 scenarios. Is frame time variance an issue that you have spotted internally and are now fixing at an early stage in the product lifecycle? Or does your Frame Pacing implementation bring other benefits with it ?

Delivering frames quickly and consistently is key to good gaming experiences, so it drives a lot of our priorities.

I believe the work the industry is doing to convert to low-level APIs like DirectX 12 and Vulkan is the single biggest way we can reduce frame-time variance and ensure good experiences. We helped get the ball rolling with Mantle, and we've collaborated extensively with the industry since then. AMD has also invested a lot of effort into drivers and software for Vulkan and DX12, and that work has been paying off, as you've noted.

Our GCN family of Radeon GPUs is especially well-suited for low-level APIs like DX12. Our advanced scheduling hardware allows async compute shaders to execute concurrently with the main graphics thread. Our support for shader intrinsic functions lets developers take hand-optimized GCN machine code from the game consoles and run it directly on our PC graphics chips. These measures can reduce overhead, improve throughput, and cut frame latencies. The work we did with id Software on Doom Vulkan is a nice example of what's possible. I think we're on the right path.

In fact, the frame-time results I've seen from our Polaris GPUs look very good across all APIs. Our software guys deserve a lot of credit for that, as does Microsoft for the good work it has done with Windows 10.

To be clear, though, the frame-pacing feature for DX12 only applies to a specific case involving multiple GPUs with AFR, so its benefits are limited to those scenarios.

rise-of-the-tomb-raider-watermarked total-war-warhammer-watermarked

– Will the DX12 Frame Pacing with mGPU have a positive effect on other important parameters such as raw FPS, GPU power usage, dynamic GPU clock speeds?

I think the best way to say it is that DX12 frame pacing should allow us to deliver better experiences at a given FPS rate and at a given GPU power level. Frame-pacing won't improve your FPS average, but it can help ensure that 60 FPS feels as smooth you'd expect it to feel.

freesync-monitor

– Has your experience and learning from FreeSync helped you with the DX12 Frame Pacing feature? And how does this now impact your future strategies with FreeSync?

The biggest thing that I learned from FreeSync was what a huge factor the interaction between the display timing loop and the GPU's timing can be. A lot of the bad experiences we as gamers blame on insufficient GPU performance are actually poor interactions with the display timing loop. You can see that because when you enable FreeSync, the issues go away. Sometimes, even FPS averages in the 40-50 FPS range can feel very acceptable with FreeSync. I didn't expect the effect to be that dramatic.

Our DX12 frame pacing feature inhabits a similar domain. It can improve in-game animation without changing the FPS average. If you try it out, toggle it on and off in the Radeon Settings control panel, you can see and feel the improvement subjectively.

The folks working on FreeSync and frame-pacing are separate teams, but both teams are working toward the common goal of perceptibly smoother animation and better experiences. These are complementary technologies, so they should coexist quite comfortably going forward.

vivestock

– Can the knowledge gained from implementing DX12 Frame Pacing with mGPU be used in your VR activities in order to help to smooth the frame time even further, thus reducing the feeling of nauseousness for some users?

VR has a similar set of goals involving consistent frame delivery, but its latency requirements are even tighter than with traditional 3D games. Also, VR is unique in that it requires rendering a scene from two perspectives, one for each eye.

As a result, we've pursued a different load-balancing method for VR in which one GPU renders the image for the right eye while the other GPU renders the image for the left eye. This method is a natural fit for VR. It uses less buffering than AFR load-balancing and ensures even lower latency.

That said, DirectX 12 should allow developers to use all sorts of creative solutions for multi-GPU operation, including in VR applications. I doubt AFR load-balancing will be part of the mix for VR, but one never knows.

– When AMD taped out Tahiti in 2011, the focus was on peak frame rates. No one seemed to care about stuttering, as long as the cards could post a top FPS that was as competitive as possible. Did it really take until Fiji for AMD’s engineers and software teams to prioritise a ‘consistently smooth experience’?

I think the goal has always been to deliver good gaming experiences. AMD has had a lot of smart people working on that problem for many years.

Most folks in the industry used to believe FPS averages were a good proxy for smooth animation, but as games and graphics APIs grew more complex, gaps between high FPS averages and good user experiences became more apparent. We didn't always use the right quantitative language to describe these performance issues precisely. I think with the move to thinking about frame times rather than FPS averages, we've solved that problem, so we can more easily pinpoint problems like stuttering. This shift in thinking has slowly diffused across the industry in recent years. The push for VR, with its especially strict latency needs, has helped move things along.

That said, if you look back at the work going on at AMD in the Tahiti era, I think you'll see incredible innovation that has laid the foundation for where the whole industry is now going. Tahiti was the first GPU with Asynchronous Compute Engines, or ACEs, which is the scheduling hardware that enables async compute shaders with concurrent execution. Our competition still doesn't have that capability. Variants of this same GCN architecture have driven the majority of consumer game consoles. And during the same era, AMD created Mantle, the first modern, low-level graphics API that served as an inspiration for Vulkan and DirectX 12.

All of those pieces are geared toward enabling creamy smooth in-game animation. Fortunately, a lot of them have come together seemingly at once, with the move to new APIs and the renewed focus in the Radeon Technologies Group. Still, the payoff we're seeing now is the result of many years of good work.

amd_radeon_artwork_angle_new

– How much stronger is AMD’s position now, than when you joined?

As you know, the Radeon Technologies Group just recently had its first birthday. Since its beginnings, RTG has brought a renewed focus to our graphics business and, in my view, the right priorities under the leadership of Raja Koduri. I'm happy to be able to play a small part in that much larger picture. Raja has recruited some top talent from outside of the company and elevated smart people within AMD, as well. With the new Polaris products and our DX12 leadership, you're seeing just a few benefits of these changes.

I’d put the improvements to RTG’s position into two big buckets, hardware and software.

On the software front, we’ve introduced a sharp new user interface in Radeon Software Crimson, and  we’ve raised the frequency of new driver releases, so we have fresh drivers ready on day one for major games. We’ve staked out a leading position with DirectX 12 and Vulkan, and we’ve made incremental improvements like the DX12 frame-pacing feature we’re talking about today. There’s a lot more coming on that front that I can’t talk about yet, too.

Meanwhile, we’ve started up our GPUOpen effort and released a bunch of open-source software components that serve as alternatives as to the proprietary software our competition uses to lock people into its chips. I don’t know that people entirely understand the power of the open approach yet, but I think it will become apparent as developers adopt and modify our solutions for in-game visual effects, for VR content creation, and for high-performance computing. These things will transform the way industries use our processors.

On the hardware front, we have a new line of Radeon RX products based on the Polaris 10 and 11 chips. The RX-series Radeons offer major improvements in terms of power efficiency and performance, and they hit the sweet spot in price for most PC gamers. If I were building a gaming rig today, I’d be looking very hard at a Radeon RX 480 8GB and a 2560×1440 FreeSync display. I think that’s the best way to get more gaming smoothness for your money. Our competition wants to charge you a huge premium for a variable-refresh display or a bigger GPU to get a similar effect.

Finally, Raja has talked about our roadmap, which includes insights into new products coming in the future. Meanwhile, our friends on the CPU side of the company have already demonstrated working silicon for Zen. That’s a huge milestone reached. All in all, I think we have much to celebrate on RTG’s first birthday.

KitGuru says: Thanks to Scott for taking the time to answer our questions. What do you think of AMD's DX12 multi-GPU frame pacing work? Will you be testing out the new feature in your own system? Discuss on our Facebook page HERE.

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GeForce and Radeon SLI support tested in Ashes of Singularity https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/matthew-wilson/geforce-and-radeon-sli-support-tested-in-ashes-of-singularity/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/matthew-wilson/geforce-and-radeon-sli-support-tested-in-ashes-of-singularity/#comments Mon, 26 Oct 2015 23:00:14 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=273124 Over the last year, we have been hearing a lot about DirectX 12 and now we are finally starting to see just what the new API can bring to the table. So far, DirectX 12 performance has been measured with Ashes of Singularity on both AMD and Nvidia GPUs, but what happens when you put …

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Over the last year, we have been hearing a lot about DirectX 12 and now we are finally starting to see just what the new API can bring to the table. So far, DirectX 12 performance has been measured with Ashes of Singularity on both AMD and Nvidia GPUs, but what happens when you put them both together in SLI? In a recent update to the early access title, support for multi-GPUs was added, allowing you to pair an AMD GPU with an Nvidia one or vice versa.

Mantle-final-CFX2-660x350

For those who don't know, Ashes of Singularity is an Early Access RTS title on Steam using DirectX 12. The latest build allows for multi-GPU Explicit Multi-Adapter functionality, one of the API's two multi-GPU modes. This new function allows inherently different graphics cards to work together efficiently, meaning different architectures, integrated GPUs and cards from entirely different makers can work together to pump out frames.

Anandtech was the first to test out multi-GPU Explicit Multi-Adapter functionality in its own tests, pairing up a GTX 980Ti, Titan X, R9 Fury X, an R9 Fury and mixing them up in different configurations:

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Click images to enlarge. Source: Anandtech.

The site even worked out the performance gain percentages:

78165

Explicit Multi-GPU support is a new addition to DirectX 12 and so far, it seems to be working fairly well. The full report is really worth taking a look at and goes in to much more depth than we could get in to in this news story. This is just the first application of this new technology as well, hopefully we will see things get better with time.

KitGuru Says: This level of multi-GPU support is exciting to see fully up and running. It holds up quite well too judging by the numbers. It will be interesting to see if Nvidia and AMD begin to actively support this technology at all going forward. 

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Nvidia’s next-gen ‘Pascal’ graphics cards will get 16GB of HBM2 memory https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/nvidias-next-gen-high-end-graphics-cards-will-get-16gb-of-hbm2-memory/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/nvidias-next-gen-high-end-graphics-cards-will-get-16gb-of-hbm2-memory/#comments Thu, 24 Sep 2015 01:57:48 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=269090 At the GPU Technology Conference in Japan, Nvidia Corp. once again revealed key features of its next-generation graphics processing architecture code-named “Pascal”. As a it appears, the company has slightly changed its plans concerning memory capacity supported by its upcoming GPUs. As expected, Nvidia’s high-end graphics processor that belongs to the “Pascal” family will feature an …

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At the GPU Technology Conference in Japan, Nvidia Corp. once again revealed key features of its next-generation graphics processing architecture code-named “Pascal”. As a it appears, the company has slightly changed its plans concerning memory capacity supported by its upcoming GPUs.

As expected, Nvidia’s high-end graphics processor that belongs to the “Pascal” family will feature an all-new architecture with a number of exclusive innovations, including mixed precision (for the first time Nvidia’s stream processors will support FP16, FP32 and FP64 precision), NVLink interconnection technology for supercomputers and multi-GPU configurations, unified memory addressing as well as support for second-generation high-bandwidth memory (HBM generation 2).

Based on a slide that Nvidia demonstrated at the GTC Japan 2015, next-generation high-end graphics cards with “Pascal” GPUs will sport up to 16GB of HBM2 with up to 1TB/s bandwidth. Previously Nvidia expected select solutions with “Pascal” graphics processors to feature up to 32GB of HBM2.

nvidia_pascal_expectations_gtc_2015_japan
Nvidia “Pascal” highlights. Image by WccfTech

Given the fact that Nvidia does not produce high-bandwidth memory itself, but relies on supplies from companies like Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, changes of their roadmaps can affect Nvidia’s plans. In order to install 32GB of HBM2 memory on a graphics processor with a 4096-bit memory bus, 8GB memory chips are used. While the HBM2 specification allows to build such ICs [integrated circuits], it is not easy to manufacture packages with eight vertically stacked 8Gb memory dies. As a result, such chips may be delayed from 2016 to a later date.

16GB of HBM2 memory should be enough for gaming and professional graphics cards, but high-performance computing applications could take advantage of 32GB of onboard memory even now.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: If Nvidia is not able to get 8GB HBM2 chips next year, AMD will not be able to get them as well. Therefore, expect graphics cards with up to 16GB of high-bandwidth memory from both companies.

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Nvidia gets first samples of GP100 from TSMC, begins internal tests https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/nvidia-receives-first-samples-of-gp100-chips-from-tsmc-begins-to-test-them/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/nvidia-receives-first-samples-of-gp100-chips-from-tsmc-begins-to-test-them/#comments Wed, 23 Sep 2015 00:18:13 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=268782 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. has successfully produced the first samples of Nvidia Corp.’s code-named GP100 graphics processing unit. Nvidia has already started to test the chip internally and should be on-track to release the GPU commercially in mid-2016. 3DCenter reports that Nvidia has sent the first graphics cards based on the GP100 graphics processor to its …

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Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. has successfully produced the first samples of Nvidia Corp.’s code-named GP100 graphics processing unit. Nvidia has already started to test the chip internally and should be on-track to release the GPU commercially in mid-2016.

3DCenter reports that Nvidia has sent the first graphics cards based on the GP100 graphics processor to its subsidiary in India, where it has a lot of hardware and software developers. No actual details about the chip or graphics cards on its base are known, but it is about time for the graphics giant to start testing its GP100.

Nvidia taped out the GP100 in June, 2015. Production cycle of TSMC’s 16nm FinFET process technology is about 90 days, therefore Nvidia got its GP100 from TSMC very recently. Right now the company is testing the chip and its drivers internally.

nvidia_artwork_iron

Nvidia’s GP100 graphics processing unit is based on the “Pascal” architecture and is made using 16nm FinFET+ process technology. The chip is expected to integrate up to 6000 stream processors and contain around 17 billion transistors. Graphics cards featuring the GP100 will carry up to 32GB of HBM2 memory.

Nvidia did not comment on the news-story.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: It is about time for Nvidia to start testing its GP100 now. What remains to be seen is when exactly the company plans to formally introduce its next-generation GPUs. If the first revision of the chip is fully functional, the company may move in introduction of the GP100 to the first quarter of the year.

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Nvidia changes roadmap: ‘Volta’ is now due in 2018 https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/nvidia-changes-roadmap-volta-is-now-due-in-2018/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/nvidia-changes-roadmap-volta-is-now-due-in-2018/#comments Tue, 22 Sep 2015 01:14:41 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=268590 Nvidia Corp. has slightly changed its roadmap concerning GPU architectures. As it appear, its next-gen GPUs code-named “Pascal” are now due in 2016, whereas their successors will be released only in 2018. Based on a new roadmap that Nvidia showcased at a tech conference in Japan, the company will release its code-named “Pascal” GPUs in 2016 …

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Nvidia Corp. has slightly changed its roadmap concerning GPU architectures. As it appear, its next-gen GPUs code-named “Pascal” are now due in 2016, whereas their successors will be released only in 2018.

Based on a new roadmap that Nvidia showcased at a tech conference in Japan, the company will release its code-named “Pascal” GPUs in 2016 and will follow on with “Volta” graphics processors in 2018. The “Pascal” chips will be made using 16nm FinFET process technology and will be available in 2016, reports WccfTech. Previously “Volta” was expected in 2017.

NVIDIA-Pascal-GPU_Roadmap

Not a lot is known about the first “Pascal” GPU. Nvidia has reportedly taped out its GP100 graphics processor back in June. Given the timeframe of the tape-out, it is highly likely that Nvidia uses TSMC’s advanced 16nm FinFET+ (CLN16FF+) manufacturing technology. Nvidia has changed its approach to roll-out of new architectures. Instead of starting from simple GPUs and introducing biggest processors quarters after the initial chips, Nvidia will begin to roll-out 16nm “Pascal” GPUs with the largest chip in the family.

Nvidia did not comment on the news-story.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: It looks like Nvidia is pulling in “Pascal”, but slightly delays “Volta”. The reason for this is simple: 10nm process technology. At TSMC it will only be available for Nvidia in 2018.

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Nvidia’s ‘Big Pascal’ GPU reportedly taped-out, on-track for 2016 launch – rumour https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/nvidias-big-pascal-gpu-reportedly-taped-out-on-track-for-2016-launch-rumour/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/nvidias-big-pascal-gpu-reportedly-taped-out-on-track-for-2016-launch-rumour/#comments Fri, 05 Jun 2015 22:33:26 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=253018 Nvidia Corp. has reportedly taped out its next-generation high-performance graphics processing unit that belongs to the “Pascal” family, according to a market rumour. If the information is correct, then Nvidia is on-track to release its new GPU around mid-2016. The company needs its “Big Pascal” graphics processor to build next-generation Tesla accelerators for high-performance computing applications …

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Nvidia Corp. has reportedly taped out its next-generation high-performance graphics processing unit that belongs to the “Pascal” family, according to a market rumour. If the information is correct, then Nvidia is on-track to release its new GPU around mid-2016. The company needs its “Big Pascal” graphics processor to build next-generation Tesla accelerators for high-performance computing applications and better compete against AMD on the market of consumer GPUs.

An anonymous person presumably with access to confidential information in the semiconductor industry revealed in a post over at Beyond3D forums that Nvidia had already taped out its next-generation code-named GP100 graphics processing unit. Nowadays, a tape-out means that the design of an integrated circuit has been finalized, but the first actual chips materialize only months after their tape-out.

Tape-out is the final stage of the design cycle of an integrated circuit, the point at which the artwork of the IC is sent to a maker of photomasks. Once the set of photolithographic masks is ready and verified, it is sent to a contract manufacturer of the chip, which produces the first working samples of the IC. Today’s mask sets contain 50 – 70 (up to 100) photomasks and it takes 15 – 20 hours to write a typical mask. It may take several weeks to prepare a mask-set. Production cycle of a complex FinFET processor is around 90 days from wafer start to chip delivery. As a result, it takes several months to prepare a set of photomasks and build an actual chip nowadays. Hence, if Nvidia taped-out of the GP100 in May, then the company will get the first samples of its GP100 in August. Nowadays high-volume production of chips starts between nine and twelve months after the initial tape-out.
nvidia_artworklatesteyeweb_mid
The world’s No. 1 producer of discrete graphics processors will reportedly use one of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.’s 16nm FinFET fabrication technology to make its “Big Pascal” GPU. Given the timeframe of the tape-out, it is highly likely that Nvidia uses TSMC’s advanced 16nm FinFET+ (CLN16FF+) manufacturing technology. According to the post, the BP100 is Nvidia’s first 16nm FinFET chip and the company has changed its approach to roll-out of new architectures. Instead of starting from simple GPUs and introducing biggest processors quarters after the initial chips, Nvidia will begin to roll-out “Pascal” with the largest chip in the family.

Nvidia’s “Pascal” architecture represents a big leap for the company. Thanks to all-new architecture, the Nvidia's next-gen GPUs will support many new features introduced by DirectX 12+, Vulkan and OpenCL application programming interfaces. The 16nm FinFET process technology will let Nvidia engineers to integrate considerably more stream processors and other execution units compared to today’s GPUs, significantly increasing overall performance. In addition, next-generation graphics processing units from Nvidia will support second-generation stacked high-bandwidth memory (HBM2). The HBM2 will let Nvidia and its partners build graphics boards with 16GB – 32GB of onboard memory and 820GB/s – 1TB/s of bandwidth. For high-performance computing (HPC) applications, the “Big Pascal” chip will integrate NVLink interconnection tech with 80GB/s or higher bandwidth, which will significantly increase performance of “Pascal”-based Tesla accelerators in supercomputers. Moreover, NVLink could bring major improvements to multi-GPU technologies thanks to massive bandwidth for inter-GPU communications. According to Nvidia's estimates, graphics adapters based on “Pascal” architecture should deliver two to ten times higher performance than comparable graphics processors today in peak scenarios.

NVIDIA_Tesla_K80_Dual-GPU_Accelerator_Front

Nvidia needs GP100 chip in order to build next-generation Tesla accelerators for supercomputers. Since “Maxwell” architecture (even the GM200) lacks native support for double precision (DP) FP64 computing, it cannot be used for Tesla cards. As a result, Nvidia currently offers Tesla accelerators featuring GK110 and GK210 chips, which are basically three years old. The release of the “Big Pascal” will help Nvidia to boost sales of Tesla cards for HPC applications.

The accuracy of predictions of the Beyond3D forum member could not be verified, but some of his previous posts indicate that he has access to information that is not yet public. The post in the forum on Friday was republished by 3DCenter, a web-site known for predictions in the field of graphics processing units.

Nvidia did not comment on the news-story.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: On the one hand, the rumour comes from one source without a track record and should be taken with a huge grain of salt. On the other hand, Nvidia needs “Big Pascal” to update Tesla accelerators as soon as possible. If Nvidia wants to release its GP100-based products in mid-2016, then the chip has been taped-out by now.

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LG quietly introduces 27-inch 4K UHD FreeSync monitor https://www.kitguru.net/peripherals/monitors/anton-shilov/lg-quietly-introduces-27-inch-4k-uhd-freesync-monitor/ https://www.kitguru.net/peripherals/monitors/anton-shilov/lg-quietly-introduces-27-inch-4k-uhd-freesync-monitor/#comments Thu, 28 May 2015 03:21:38 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=251437 LG Electronics has quietly added one of the most advanced AMD FreeSync-supporting displays announced to date into its product lineup. The monitor combines AMD’s variable refresh rate technology with ultra-high-definition 4K resolution, a combination not available previously. The display is about to become available in Australia. The LG 27MU67 monitor is based on a 27” …

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LG Electronics has quietly added one of the most advanced AMD FreeSync-supporting displays announced to date into its product lineup. The monitor combines AMD’s variable refresh rate technology with ultra-high-definition 4K resolution, a combination not available previously. The display is about to become available in Australia.

The LG 27MU67 monitor is based on a 27” IPS panel with 3840*2160 resolution that features sRGB 99% coverage as well as 10-bit colour. The monitor has two HDMI, one DisplayPort and one mini DisplayPort inputs. Actual refresh rate of the product is unknown, but do not expect it to be higher than 60Hz, like on the vast majority of ultra HD monitors, notes TechReport.

AMD’s FreeSync technology, which dynamically synchronizes refresh rates of displays with the frame rate of AMD Radeon graphics adapters to reduce input latency and improve visual quality, is a feature demanded primarily by gamers. As a result, the LG 27MU67 is positioned as a “serious kit for serious gamers” and comes with appropriate enhancements, such as game mode and black stabilizer.

lg_34_inch_freesync_display

It is unclear why LG Electronics has not yet announced its 27MU67 officially. There are virtually no 4K AMD FreeSync-supported displays in the market today and the device has all chances to become popular among gamers.

The display costs AUD799, which is approximately £399, $613 or €563, in line with many other large IPS monitors. Actual prices in the U.S., the U.K. and Europe are unknown.

LG did not comment on the news-story.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: While the LG 27MU67 does not feature extreme refresh-rate demanded by many gamers today, it still seems to be a nice solution for gaming. The display has 4K UHD resolution, an IPS panel, AMD FreeSync support and it is not very expensive. Definitely a product to consider!

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Microsoft details cross-IHV multi-GPU tech in DirectX 12 https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/microsoft-details-cross-ihv-multi-gpu-tech-in-directx-12/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/microsoft-details-cross-ihv-multi-gpu-tech-in-directx-12/#comments Fri, 08 May 2015 01:14:10 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=248494 Microsoft Corp. has revealed first details about its cross-vendor multi-GPU technology supported by its upcoming DirectX 12 application programming interface. As reported, the new tech allows using graphics processing units developed by different companies to work together. However, there is a catch: applications should be designed to support the Multiadapter feature and real-world performance benefits …

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Microsoft Corp. has revealed first details about its cross-vendor multi-GPU technology supported by its upcoming DirectX 12 application programming interface. As reported, the new tech allows using graphics processing units developed by different companies to work together. However, there is a catch: applications should be designed to support the Multiadapter feature and real-world performance benefits of the new tech are projected to be rather modest.

The DirectX 12 is a low-level/high-throughput API, which has a close-to-metal access to GPU and CPU resources. Low-level access to hardware allows to split the rendering workload across different graphics processors. Since in many cases multi-GPU technologies require synchronization between different graphics chips, which is not an easy thing to do even in hardware, Microsoft proposes to use its Multiadapter for separable and contiguous workloads. One example of separable workloads is post-processing (i.e., antialiasing, depth-of-field, etc.).

nvidia_battlebox_4K_uhd_sli_geforce_gtx_titan

If an application “knows” how to render a scene on one GPU and post-process it on another, once it detects two graphics processors, it can use both. For example, millions of modern gaming personal computers powered by mainstream Intel microprocessors feature Intel integrated graphics cores in addition to discrete graphics cards. At present integrated graphics engines are not used for rendering, but future apps that can take advantage of the Multiadapter technology will be able to use those integrated graphics cores for separable and contiguous workloads.

“Virtually every game out there makes use of post-processing to make your favorite games visually impressive, but that post-processing work doesn’t come free,” explained Andrew Yeung, a program manager in the Microsoft graphics team. “By offloading some of the post-processing work to a second GPU, the first GPU is freed up to start on the next frame before it would have otherwise been able to improving your overall framerate.”

To demonstrate the benefits of its Multi-adapter technology, Microsoft benchmarked two test systems in a DX12 Unreal Engine 4-based Elemental benchmark. One PC was equipped with a single Nvidia GeForce GTX graphics card, whereas another featured the same board and an Intel integrated graphics processing unit. The Multi-adapter system scored 39.7 frames per second, whereas the PC with one graphics card scored 35.9 fps. 10 per cent difference is clearly not something big, but in certain cases even small performance gains may be important. Microsoft claims that utilization of Intel’s GPU was about 70 per cent, which means that eventually even more performance could be extracted.

3730_multiadapter-dx12-ue4-2

Usage of heterogeneous multi-GPU is not limited to post-processing. Secondary GPUs could be used for other workloads as well. However, the applications should be Multiadapter-compatible to use cross-vendor multi-GPU configurations. Microsoft did not reveal whether it was easy or hard to add Multiadapter support to programs. As a result, it is unclear whether game developers will actually use the technology to improve performance.

One thing that should be noted is that Multi-adapter is not a technology designed solely to boost performance of multi-GPU systems. The Multi-adapter tech allows to precisely assign different workloads on different GPUs, something that could open doors to never-before-seen rendering methods.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: In theory, Microsoft’s Multiadapter technology should provide a number of interesting technological opportunities. Its adoption by game developers will depend on the cost of its implementation and actual benefits. 10 per cent performance boost is good for game consoles, but for PCs it may not make a lot of sense for game developers.

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AMD delays FreeSync support on multi-GPU systems https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/amd-delays-freesync-support-on-multi-gpu-systems/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/amd-delays-freesync-support-on-multi-gpu-systems/#comments Sat, 02 May 2015 19:34:25 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=247880 Advanced Micro Devices said this week that its FreeSync technology will not be supported by systems running multiple AMD Radeon graphics cards for a while. The GPU developer revealed no information regarding problems it ran into with its FreeSync and CrossFire technologies. The company is confident that it will be able to solve the issues. …

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Advanced Micro Devices said this week that its FreeSync technology will not be supported by systems running multiple AMD Radeon graphics cards for a while. The GPU developer revealed no information regarding problems it ran into with its FreeSync and CrossFire technologies. The company is confident that it will be able to solve the issues.

“After vigorous QA testing, however, it is now clear to us that support for AMD FreeSync monitors on a multi-GPU system is not quite ready for release,” said an AMD customer care spokesperson. “As it is our ultimate goal to give AMD customers an ideal experience when using our products, we must announce a delay of the AMD Catalyst driver that would offer this support.”

AMD’s FreeSync technology, which dynamically synchronizes refresh rates of displays with the frame rate of AMD Radeon graphics adapters to reduce input latency and improve visual quality, is one of the key new features that many gamers anticipated from the company. At present, the technology is supported on systems with one graphics adapter, but many core gamers nowadays use PCs with two or even more graphics cards. In fact, many early adopters willing to buy new FreeSync-enabled displays use multi-GPU systems. As a result, the delay of FreeSync support on personal computers with two or more Radeon graphics cards running in CrossFireX mode essentially delays adoption of the technology in general.

amd_freesync_artwork

AMD does not reveal any information about the problems of FreeSync on multi-GPU systems, but the issues should be solvable. Nvidia Corp.’s G-Sync technology, which does the same thing as AMD’s FreeSync, works flawlessly on multi-GPU systems, according to the developer. Therefore, AMD should be able to fix the issues with FreeSync in the future.

“We will continue to develop and test this solution in accordance with our stringent quality standards, and we will provide another update when it is ready for release,” the statement from AMD reads.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: AMD’s top priority today is to ensure that its next-generation Radeon R9 graphics cards work perfectly with current and upcoming games. Therefore, the resources it can assign to solve FreeSync issues are relatively limited. As a result, it is completely unclear when the company will actually release a FreeSync-supporting driver for multi-GPU gaming PCs. What is clear is that this will lower demand for all AMD Radeon graphics among buyers of high-end gaming PCs.

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Nvidia: ‘Pascal’ architecture’s NVLink to enable 8-way multi-GPU capability https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/nvidia-pascal-architectures-nvlink-to-enable-8-way-multi-gpu-capability/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/nvidia-pascal-architectures-nvlink-to-enable-8-way-multi-gpu-capability/#comments Thu, 19 Mar 2015 02:42:37 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=240836 Compute performance of modern graphics processing units (GPUs) is tremendous, but so are the needs of modern applications that use such chips to display beautiful images or perform complex scientific calculations. Nowadays it is rather impossible to install more than four GPUs into a computer box and get adequate performance scaling. But brace yourself as …

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Compute performance of modern graphics processing units (GPUs) is tremendous, but so are the needs of modern applications that use such chips to display beautiful images or perform complex scientific calculations. Nowadays it is rather impossible to install more than four GPUs into a computer box and get adequate performance scaling. But brace yourself as Nvidia is working on eight-way multi-GPU technology.

The vast majority of personal computers today have only one graphics processor, but many gaming PCs used to play games integrate two graphics cards for increased framerate. Enthusiasts, who want to have unbeatable performance in select games and benchmarks opt for three-way or four-way multi-GPU setups, but these are pretty rare because scaling beyond two GPUs is not really high. Professionals, who need high-performance GPUs for simulations, deep learning and other applications also benefit from four graphics processors and could use even more GPUs per box. Unfortunately, that is virtually impossible because of limitations imposed by today’s PCI Express and SLI technologies. However, Nvidia hopes that with the emergence of the code-named “Pascal” GPUs and NVLink bus, it will be considerably easier to build multi-GPU machines.

nvidia_battlebox_4K_uhd_sli_geforce_gtx_titan

Today even the top-of-the-range Intel Core i7-5960X processor has only 40 PCI Express 3.0 lanes (up to 40GB/s of bandwidth), thus, can connect up to two graphics cards using PCIe 3.0 x16 or up to four cards using PCIe 3.0 x8 bus. In both cases, maximum bandwidth available for GPU-to-GPU communications will be limited to 16GB/s or 8GB/s (useful bandwidth will be around 12GB/s and 6GB/s) in the best case scenarios since GPUs need to communicate with the CPU too.

nvidia_pascal_nvlink_0

In a bid to considerably improve communication speed between GPUs, Nvidia will implement support of proprietary NVLink bus into its next-generation “Pascal” GPUs. Each NVLink point-to-point connection will support 20GB/s of bandwidth in both directions simultaneously (16GB/s effective bandwidth in both directions) and each “Pascal” high-end GPU will support at least four of such links. In case a of a system with NVLink, two GPUs would get a total peak bandwidth of 80GB/s (64GB/s effective) per direction between them. Moreover, PCI Express bandwidth would be preserved for CPU-to-GPU communications. In case of four-GPU sub-system, graphics processors would get up to 40GB/s bandwidth to communicate with each other.

nvidia_pascal_nvlink

According to Nvidia, NVLink is projected to deliver up to two times higher performance in many applications simply by replacing the PCIe interconnect for communication among peer GPUs. It should be noted that in an NVLink-enabled system, CPU-initiated transactions such as control and configuration are still directed over a PCIe connection, while any GPU-initiated transactions use NVLink, which allows to preserve the PCIe programming model.

nvidia_pascal_nvlink_1

Additional bandwidth provided by NVLink could allow one to build a personal computer with up to eight GPUs. However, to make it useful in applications beyond technical computing, Nvidia will have to find a way to efficiently use eight graphics cards for rendering. Since performance scaling beyond two GPUs is generally low, it is unlikely that eight-way multi-GPU technology will actually make it to the market. However, if Nvidia manages to improve efficiency of current multi-GPU technologies in general by replacing SLI [scalable link interface] with NVLink, that could further boost popularity of the company’s graphics cards among gamers.

Performance improvement could be even more significant in systems that completely rely on NVLink instead of PCI Express. IBM plans to add NVLink to select Power microprocessors for supercomputers and the technology will be extremely useful for high-performance servers powered by Nvidia Tesla accelerators.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: While actual video games will hardly be able to use eight GPUs efficiently, we are pretty sure that 3DMark benchmarks will set records on extreme many-GPU graphics sub-systems.

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Microsoft confirms cross-IHV ‘AMD + Nvidia’ multi-GPU support by DX12 https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/microsoft-confirms-cross-ihv-amd-nvidia-multi-gpu-tech-support-by-dx12/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/microsoft-confirms-cross-ihv-amd-nvidia-multi-gpu-tech-support-by-dx12/#comments Thu, 12 Mar 2015 21:18:07 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=239638 Microsoft Corp. has confirmed that its upcoming DirectX 12 application programming interface (API) will support some sort of cross-vendor multi-GPU technology that will allow graphics processing units from different developers to work together at the same time. Unfortunately, the software developer revealed no specifics about the tech, therefore, it does not mean that one could …

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Microsoft Corp. has confirmed that its upcoming DirectX 12 application programming interface (API) will support some sort of cross-vendor multi-GPU technology that will allow graphics processing units from different developers to work together at the same time. Unfortunately, the software developer revealed no specifics about the tech, therefore, it does not mean that one could actually benefit by using a Radeon and a GeForce in the same system.

A Microsoft technical support staff member said that DirectX 12 will support “multi-GPU configurations between Nvidia and AMD”, according to a screenshot published over at LinusTechTips, a community known for various interesting findings. The Microsoft representative did not reveal requirements necessary to make an AMD Radeon and an Nvidia GeForce run in tandem, besides, she also did not indicate actual benefits of such setup.

microsoft_directx_logo_12

Various types of multi-GPU technologies are used to accomplish various tasks. Gamers utilize more than one graphics card in AMD CrossFire or Nvidia SLI configurations to get higher framerates in modern video games. Professionals use multiple graphics adapters to attach many displays to one PC. Engineers can use different types of add-in-boards (AIBs) for rendering (AMD FirePro or Nvidia Quadro) and simulation (Nvidia Tesla or Intel Xeon Phi). Artists and designers can use several GPUs for final rendering in ultra-high resolutions using ray-tracing or similar methods. While in some cases (e.g., driving multiple displays, rendering + simulation, etc.) it is possible to use AIBs from different developers, in many other cases (gaming, ray-tracing, etc.) it is impossible due to various limitations. Independent hardware vendors (IHV) also do not exactly like heterogeneous multi-GPU configurations, which is why it is impossible to use AMD Radeon for rendering and Nvidia GeForce for physics computing in games that use PhysX engine from Nvidia.

At present it is unclear which multi-GPU configurations were referred to by the Microsoft representative.

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DISCLAIMER: KitGuru cannot verify identity of the Microsoft representative and authenticity of the screenshot.

While it is obvious that DirectX 12 will support contemporary cross-IHV multi-GPU configurations, a previous report suggested that the upcoming API will also allow to use graphics processors from different vendors in cases not possible today, e.g., for rendering video games. There are multiple reasons why it is impossible to use GPUs from different vendors for real-time rendering today, including tricky rendering methods, API limitations, application limitations, differences in GPU architectures, driver limitations and so on. Microsoft’s DirectX 12 potentially removes API-related limitations in certain cases and introduces a number of new techniques that allow to use resources of two graphics cards at the same time.

Since DX12 is a low-level/high-throughput API, it should have a close-to-metal access to GPU resources and in many cases this should provide a number of interesting technological opportunities. Among other things, the new API should allow usage of cross-IHV multi-GPU configurations in applications that were made with DX12 and heterogeneous multi-GPU setups in mind. For example, it should be possible to use graphics chips from different vendors for ray-tracing, compute-intensive tasks and similar workloads. Since architectures of GeForce and Radeon graphics pipelines are vastly different, using two graphics cards from different vendors for real-time latency-sensitive rendering of modern video games that use contemporary 3D engines should be extremely complicated. All multi-GPU technologies used for real-time rendering require two GPUs to be synchronized not only in terms of feature-set, but also in terms of performance, memory latencies and so on.

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Given all the difficulties with synchronization of cross-IHV multi-GPU setups for latency-sensitive real-time rendering, it is unlikely that such a technology could take off. However, it should be kept in mind that DirectX 12 is designed not only for personal computers, but also for Xbox One. Microsoft has been experimenting with cloud-assisted AI and physics computations for Xbox One (both are latency-insensitive). Therefore, at least theoretically, there is a technology that lets developers (or even programs) to perform different tasks using different hardware resources without need for real-time synchronization.

Perhaps, DX12 will let apps use “secondary” GPUs for certain tasks without significant synchronization-related issues. The only question is whether AMD and Nvidia would be glad about heterogeneous multi-GPU configurations in general and will not block them in their drivers.

AMD and Nvidia declined to comment on the news-story.

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KitGuru Says: Considering the fact that cross-IHV multi-GPU configurations in DirectX 12 is something completely unclear at the moment, take everything reported about this with a huge grain of salt. At least in theory, heterogeneous multi-GPU technologies for video games are possible, only these are not CrossFire or SLI configurations we know today. In short, do not expect your old Radeon HD 7970 to significantly boost performance of your shiny new GeForce GTX 980 once DirectX 12 is here.

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Gigabyte sells GTX 980 WaterForce 3-way SLI kit for £2499/$2999 https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/gigabyte-starts-to-sell-geforce-gtx-980-waterforce-3-way-sli-kit-for-24992999/ https://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/anton-shilov/gigabyte-starts-to-sell-geforce-gtx-980-waterforce-3-way-sli-kit-for-24992999/#comments Thu, 11 Dec 2014 06:03:29 +0000 http://www.kitguru.net/?p=225815 Gigabyte Technology has started to sell what could be the highest-performing retail graphics processing solution ever developed. The Gigabyte GeForce GTX 980 WaterForce 3-way SLI includes three massively factory-overclocked graphics cards that are designed to work in multi-GPU mode as well as a special liquid cooling solution. But extreme performance comes at extreme price. Designed …

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Gigabyte Technology has started to sell what could be the highest-performing retail graphics processing solution ever developed. The Gigabyte GeForce GTX 980 WaterForce 3-way SLI includes three massively factory-overclocked graphics cards that are designed to work in multi-GPU mode as well as a special liquid cooling solution. But extreme performance comes at extreme price.

Designed to deliver ultimate framerates in the latest games in ultra-high-definition resolutions, the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 980 WaterForce 3-way SLI (GV-N980X3WA-4GD) graphics board kit features default GPU clock-rates of 1228MHz/1329MHz (base/boost). Each graphics card sports 4GB of GDDR5 memory at 7GHz, three DisplayPort, one HDMI and two DVI outputs.

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Gigabyte’s three-card graphics product is a unique offering that is designed to provide unbeatable performance at price-points already tested by Nvidia Corp. itself with its GeForce GTX Titan Z. While potentially this three-way multi-GPU graphics kit should offer higher performance than the dual-GPU graphics card, it should be noted that far not all video games scale performance with three GPUs. As a consequence, Gigabyte’s solution will not be the absolutely best graphics sub-system possible in all cases. Still, unlike the GTX Titan Z, the GTX 980 WaterForce 3-way SLI kit features high clock-rates and will offer decent levels of performance even in case only one GPU is active, hence, in general the triple-GPU configuration should deliver high performance in almost all games.

Thanks to closed-loop liquid cooling solution, the kit only produces 30.4db of noise while fully-loaded. The 3-way SLI GeForce GTX 980 graphics processing kit runs 42.6 per cent cooler compared to reference design graphics cards while delivering up to 20 per cent higher performance.

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According to Gigabyte Technology, the WaterForce cooler is the best cooling solution for three-way SLI GeForce GTX 980 graphics sub-system, which can easily be true since there are no off-the-shelf closed-loop liquid cooling kits for three graphics cards. Each graphics board is pre-installed with its own exclusive waterblock and independent radiator connected with a pair of coolant pipes. All three 120mm radiators are placed inside the external metal watercooling box for maximum efficiency. The box sports three 120mm fans.

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The Gigabyte WaterForce liquid cooler features an intuitive control panel with an OLED display panel, where users can monitor and adjust all the settings about the graphics cards, including temperature, fan speed and pump speed. Moreover, the Gigabyte kit features target temperature mode that automatically adjusts fan and pump speeds to achieve user-defined temperatures.

On Wednesday Overclockers UK and Newegg began to sell/take pre-orders on the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 980 WaterForce 3-way SLI graphics cards kit at rather whopping price-points. In the U.K. the 3-way kit costs £2499.99 including VAT, whereas in the U.S. the 3-way graphics sub-system is priced at whopping $2999.99.

The GTX 980 WaterForce 3-way SLI kit (GV-N980X3WA-4GD) will eventually be available in Taiwan, Australia, China, France, Germany, Japan, Korea and Russia beginning this month.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: While the monstrous GTX 980 WaterForce 3-way SLI kit is designed to deliver ultimate gaming performance for hardcore gamers, it comes at a price that by far exceeds the cost of three GeForce GTX 980 graphics adapters. In fact, the three-way liquid cooling solution costs rather whopping $1350/£1300, an extreme price for a cooler.

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