“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.]
Nice!!
How do u disable iphones annoying opening of iphoto everytime i dock it?
iPhoto preferences/general
connecting camera opens: select “no application”
Schwing.
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?
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.
@Ampar
As a general rule of thumb, I use the “Dog Slow” rate when describing Microsoft, so give them 7 years.
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!
Anyone here going to be answering Nvidia’s call?
Read the article. They state a 45 to 415 TIMES inproved performance – not %!
Is this really possible?
The return of the math co-processor! Sweet and totally retro!
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.
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?
@ 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.
@ Ampar,
1 Apple Year = 1 Googol Microsoft Years
Google googol
Thanks, Sixvodkas and Roberto. I was going to use Excel to figure it out but, well . . . that was a butt well.