Abstract: This paper presents a many-core visual computing architecture code named Larrabee, a new software rendering pipeline, a manycore programming model, and performance analysis for several applications. Larrabee uses multiple in-order x86 CPU cores that are augmented by a wide vector processor unit, as well as some fixed function logic blocks. This provides dramatically higher performance per watt and per unit of area than out-of-order CPUs on highly parallel workloads. It also greatly increases the flexibility and programmability of the architecture as compared to standard GPUs. A coherent on-die 2nd level cache allows efficient inter-processor communication and high-bandwidth local data access by CPU cores. Task scheduling is performed entirely with software in Larrabee, rather than in fixed function logic. The customizable software graphics rendering pipeline for this architecture uses binning in order to reduce required memory bandwidth, minimize lock contention, and increase opportunities for parallelism relative to standard GPUs. The Larrabee native programming model supports a variety of highly parallel applications that use irregular data structures. Performance analysis on those applications demonstrates Larrabee’s potential for a broad range of parallel computation. (Larrabee: A Many-Core x86 Architecture for Visual Computing. Seiler, L., Carmean, D., Sprangle, D., Forsyth, T., Abrash, M., Dubey, P., Junkins, S., Lake, A., Sugerman, J., Cavin, R., Espasa, R., Grochowski, E., Juan, T., Hanrahan, P. Proceedings of SIGGRAPH 2008.)

Vision4ce launched a new line of General-purpose Rugged Image Processing (GRIP) products at the recent SPIE Defense and Security Symposium in Orlando from 18th-20th March 2008. The GRIP-Beta showed cutting edge GPGPU-based image processing demonstrations, analog and Gigabit Ethernet video streams and the robust functionality in the Gripworkx image processing framework. The Vision4ce team with GRIP now addresses numerous rugged embedded computing challenges with a cost effective, readily available rugged solution that might normally be served by more expensive and lengthy FPGA approaches. See www.vision4ce.com for more information.

AMD has announced the AMD FireStream 9170 Stream Processor and an accompanying Software Development Kit (SDK) designed to harness the massive parallel processing power of the graphics processing unit (GPU). The AMD FireStream 9170 will support double-precision floating point technology tailored for scientific and engineering calculations. The AMD FireStream SDK is designed to deliver the tools developers need to create and optimize applications on AMD Stream processors. Built using an open platforms approach, the AMD FireStream SDK allows developers to access key Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) and specifications, enabling performance tuning at the lowest level and development of third party tools. Building on AMD’s Close to the Metal (CTM) interface introduced in 2006, the Compute Abstraction Layer (CAL) provides low-level access to the GPU for development and performance tuning along with forward compatibility to future GPUs. For high-level development, AMD is announcing Brook+, a tool providing C extensions for stream computing based on the Brook project from Stanford University. In addition, AMD also plans to support the AMD Core Math Library (ACML) to provide GPU-accelerated math functions, and the COBRA video library accelerates video transcode. Also available are third-party tools from top industry partners including RapidMind and Microsoft. (Press Release)

Yesterday ATI announced its new line of GPUs, the X1K family. This family includes the flagship Radeon X1800 XT and XL GPUs (codenamed R520), the mid-range Radeon X1600 XT and Pro GPUs (code named RV530), and the mainstream Radeon X1300 and X1300 Pro GPUs (code named RV515). For a detailed overview, see the articles at ExtremeTech or Beyond3D. ATI has also announced preliminary plans to enable GPGPU development by publishing a detailed spec and a thin abstraction interface for programming the new GPUs.

This paper by P. Trancoso and M. Charalambous at the University of Cyprus presents a comprehensive study of the performance of general-purpose applications on the GPU, and determines the conditions that make the GPU work efficiently. Also, as the GPU is cheaper and consumes less power than a high-end CPU, the authors show the benefits of using the graphics card to extend the life-time of an existing computer system. (Exploring Graphics Processor Performance for General Purpose Applications. P. Trancoso and M. Charalambous. Proceedings of the Eighth Euromicro Conference on Digital System Design (DSD 2005))

Excerpted from GPU Gems 2, "The GeForce 6 Series GPU Architecture" (Chapter 30) describes the architecture of the GeForce 6 Series family of GPUs, including details on the overall system architecture, vertex processor, fragment processor, and various other features. (Emmett Kilgariff and Randima Fernando. "The GeForce 6 Series GPU Architecture", in GPU Gems 2, Addison-Wesley 2005.)

"Imagine that the appendix in primates had evolved. Instead of becoming a prehensile organ routinely removed from humans when it became troublesome, imagine the appendix had grown a dense cluster of complex neurons to become the seat of rational thought, leaving the brain to handle housekeeping and control functions. That scenario would not be far from what has happened to graphics processing units." This feature by Ron Wilson of EE Times includes articles by John Owens, Ian Buck, Mark Harris, Patrick McCormick, and Pedro Sander. (The Graphics Chip as Supercomputer. EE Times. December 13, 2004.)

3Dlabs Inc. has introduced its PCI Express-based Wildcat Realizm 800. A professional PCI Express-based graphics accelerator, the Wildcat Realizm 800 features a Wildcat Realizm Vertex/Scalability Unit (VSU) and dual Wildcat Realizm Visual Processing Units (VPU). The Wildcat Realizm 800 and the new AGP 8x-based Wildcat Realizm 100 and 200 deliver programmability via the OpenGL Shading Language and Microsoft DirectX 9.0 HLSL shader programs. The Wildcat Realizm 800 is slated for availability in the third calendar quarter of this year at a suggested retail price of $2799. (3Dlabs Wildcat Realizm Family)

NVIDIA Corporation recently introduced its new GeForce 6800 GPU (codename NV40). Among the new features of this GPU are 64-bit floating point texture filtering and blending and support for the D3D vertex and pixel shader 3.0 standard, enabling full dynamic branching and looping in programmable shaders. The GeForce 6800 features 16 pixel pipelines. The improved pixel shader performance of the GeForce 6800 architecture should provide excellent performance for GPGPU applications. NVIDIA report that they have seen over a 3x speedup on a GPU-based Navier-Stokes fluid flow simulation (compared to an NVIDIA GeForce FX 5950).

ATI Technologies recently introduced its new RADEON X800 line of graphics cards (codename R420). Among the new features of these cards are 3Dc, a new compression scheme for normal maps, and support for the D3D ps_2_b pixel shader specification. The ps_2_b shader model allows for pixel shaders up to 512 instructions long with 32 temporary registers. The RADEON X800 XT Platinum Edition features 16 pixel pipelines while the RADEON X800 PRO has 12 pixel pipelines. The improved pixel shader performance of the RADEON X800 architecture should provide excellent performance for GPGPU applications. ATI report they have seen up to a 2.5x speedup on an implementation of GPU-based fluid flow simulation (compared to an ATI RADEON 9800 XT).