Hardware

The hot GPU chips

I didn’t have to drive one and a half hours each way to hear and see the GPU presentations at Hot Chips this year, something I will be eternally grateful for. I did miss getting to see some of my friends, but I see many of them on Zoom calls anyway. The air didn’t get any more polluted and my … Read more

AMD updates Radeon Pro software for enterprise

The new Radeon Pro Enterprise Drivers are designed to make the Radeon Pro W5700 look its best, at least until a new round of drivers come around.    AMD says the new drivers are enabling a 15% increase in geomean SPECviewperf 13 benchmark Viewsets compared to the previous 19.Q3 driver. And the company claims its new power management features offer … Read more

Intel Architecture Day—what have we learned about Xe?

Intel held an on-line architectural day., with Raja Koduri SVP, Chief Architect, and GM of Architecture, Graphics, and Software taking over as master of ceremony and technology explainer. He spoke about the company’s forthcoming GPU initiative known as X, and then introduced all the other speakers. Raja Koduri Senior Vice President, Chief Architect, And General Manager of Architecture, Graphics, and … Read more

XR has a real chance now, thanks to Khronos

The headline is:  Khronos announced multiple conformant implementations of OpenXR are shipping from Oculus and Microsoft. That happened because of the newly opened OpenXR 1.0 Adopters Program and open-source conformance tests, which Khronos announced was coming after launching the OpenXR 1.0 specification last year at Siggraph. Getting something this significant through all the bureaucratic and territorial fiefdoms of two major … Read more

Nvidia’s super AIB powers Florida supercomputer HiPerGator

University of Florida HiPerGator The University of Florida announced a public-private partnership with Nvidia to build the fastest AI supercomputer in academia capable of 700 petaflops AI performance. The University says the new computer will catapult UF’s research strength to address some of the world’s most formidable challenges, create unprecedented access to AI training and tools for underrepresented communities, and … Read more

DisplayLink finds a home at Synaptics

It used to be a pain to hook up two or more monitors to a single computer. But with DisplayLink, it got much easier. You could plug one display into the video output (VGA, DVI) of the computer. Then connect the other monitors to a DisplayLink adapter and the DisplayLink adapter to a USB port. Load a small driver, and … Read more

AMD Ryzen 4000 Series DT APUs with bigger GPUs

AMD has introduced its 7 nm Ryzen 4000 and 3000 Series desktop APUs with Radeon graphics and says they are designed for OEMs and pre-built PCs for consumer and commercial markets. The company has introduced 18 models segmented by regular and Pro, and with each three Athlon versions. The APU starts with the 35 w Athlon 3050E which has 3 … Read more

GPU scheduling—don’t be late

Source: Daily Mail GPU Scheduling—was is it, who needs it, who wants it? The (May 2020, ver. 2004) updated Microsoft’s Windows 10’s DirectX API got a new optional feature called Hardware Accelerated GPU Scheduling—a feature designed to reduce latency caused by buffering between the CPU and GPU. Microsoft says DirectX 12 can now offload most of GPU scheduling to a … Read more

Will AMD be the next casualty of Apple’s verticalization?

All kinds of great rumors came out of Apple’s WWDC including Apple dropping Intel in favor of their own Arm-based CPU. A few years ago, Apple terminated its long relationship with Imagination for GPU IP, hired a bunch of Imagination GPU engineers, and introduced their own Imagination inspired GPU for iPhones and iPads. Life’s tough in the Valley; it’s eat … Read more

Another dGPU from China—Zhaoxin?

Strong murmurs and rumors out of China indicate Zhaoxin might introduce a dGPU. How did they manage to do that? Well, it starts back in the late-1980s with the founding of Via Technologies. In 1987, Cher Wang, heir to the Formosa Plastics Group, set up the company to supply motherboard chipsets and components but almost from the very start, the … Read more