As nVidia’s FERMI is designed with super-computing in mind, nVidia is quick to point out that it is also targeting Apple’s Snow Leopard and Windows 7.
We recently wrote about nVidia‘s new ‘FERMI‘ technology for their next gen GPUs. It’s basically a GPU chip that can — in some cases — do CPU-type work and processes. This is (or will be) nVidia’s reply to AMD/ATI’s new Radeon HD 5000 series. But this will most likely be a long-term shot at taking the GPU crown back from the AMD group rather than a like-for-like matchup with ATI’s current offerings.
CNET.com reports on this:
Nvidia’s new Fermi chip is being billed as a supercomputing chip but Nvidia doesn’t want you to forget that it is also aimed at Apple’s Snow Leopard and Windows 7.
The Fermi chip was announced with much fanfare on Wednesday as key silicon in a future supercomputer from Oak Ridge National Laboratory. But, wait, Fermi is also going to be great at accelerating stuff in Snow Leopard and Windows 7–not to mention a great gaming chip, according to Bill Dally, chief scientist at Nvidia who spoke during a conference call with analysts on Thursday.
Read the full report at CNET.com.
nVidia takes advantage of the fact that both Snow Leopard and Windows 7 allow the GPU to be used as a “co-processor” in 3rd party programs. What this means for you and me is that, although ATI’s Radeon HD 5870 kicks royal butt bar-none as of press time, nVidia is taking the long approach here. As more and more applications take on the co-processing feature, applications will start to run unbelievably faster with FERMI.
Currently, Adobe’s full Creative Suite takes advantage of this feature, and the results have been very impressive — FERMI cuts down render and process times dramatically. A number of media conversion, streaming and rendering applications is set to jump into the bandwagon — pointedly, ones that convert HD media for portable devices like iPods — or for burning to Blu-ray discs and Blu-ray burners.
