Summary
NVIDIA’s second generation unified visual computing architecture as embodied in
the new GeForce GTX 200 GPUs is a significant evolution over the original unified
architecture of GeForce 8 and 9 series GPUs. Numerous extensions and functional
enhancements to the architecture permit a performance increase averaging 1.5× the
prior architecture. Improvements in sheer processing power combined with
improved architectural efficiency allow amazing speedups in gaming, visual
computing, and high-end computation.
Compared to earlier GPUs such as GeForce 8800 GTX, the GeForce GTX 280
provides:
1.88× more processing cores
2.5× more threads per chip
Doubled register file size
Double-precision floating-point support
Much faster geometry shading
1 GB frame buffer with 512-bit memory interface
More efficient instruction scheduling and instruction issue
Higher clocked and more efficient frame buffer memory access
Improvements in on-chip communications between various units
Improved Z-cull and compression supporting higher performance at
high resolutions, and
10-bit color support
These all result in enough graphics and compute power to deliver the most intensive
and extreme 3D gaming experiences and teraflop performance for demanding high-
end compute-intensive applications.
NVIDIA SLI technology is taken to new levels with GeForce GTX 200 GPUs and
NVIDIA PhysX technology will add amazing new graphical effects to upcoming
game titles. CUDA applications will benefit from additional cores, far more threads,
double-precision math, and increased register file size.
Wise users purchasing new systems will conduct performance analyses to optimize
their PC architecture. They will find that a lower-end CPU paired with a higher-end
GPU produces more performance than the reverse and for the same price. This
heterogeneous computing using the right processors for the right tasks and
designing optimized PCs to take advantage of it is the wave of the future.
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May, 2008 | TB-04044-001_v01
