Nvidia CEO Introduces Nvidia Ampere Architecture, Nvidia A100 GPU

Post by smabie » Fri, May 15, 2020, 4:36 AM UTC

bhouston wrote: post #187

dijit wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't like that people downvoted you for asking a question. If someone thinks the question is stupid or not doesn't mean that a downvote is warranted. (nor an upvote, answer the question and move on.) To answer though; it's just a coincidence, as you might already know Nvidia uses famous scientists (especially in the field of electricity) as the names of their microarchitectures. * Volta (Alessandro Volta, inventor…

And even before that there was: * GeForce (for Andrea Geforce, the first to use the color electric green) * Riva (for Jose Riva, the discoverer that you can use TNT to generate electricity.)

Post by pjmlp » Fri, May 15, 2020, 4:51 AM UTC

Reelin wrote: post #207

pjmlp wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone is free to target PTX and do their own compiler on top. In fact, given that it is there since version 3, there are compilers available for almost all major programing languages, including managed ones. While OpenCL is a C world, and almost no one cares about the C++ extensions and even less vendors care about SPIR-V. Also the community doesn't seem to be bothered that for a long time, the only SYCL implementat…

> the community doesn't seem to be bothered that for a long time, the only SYCL implementation was a commercial one Bothered has nothing to do with it. Implementing low level toolchains generally seems to require both a gargantuan effort and an incredible depth of knowledge. If it didn't, I think tooling and languages in general would be significantly better across the board. What am I supposed to do, implement a SYC…

Post by shaklee3 » Fri, May 15, 2020, 5:12 AM UTC

fluffything wrote: post #94

wegs wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. That's been my general problem with adopting NVidia for anything. They make good hardware, but there's a lot of lock-in, and not a lot of transparency. That introduces business risk. I'm not in a position where I need GPGPU, but if there wasn't that risk, and generally there were mature, open standards, I'd definitely use it. The major breakpoint would be when libraries like Numpy do it natively, and better yet…

> They make good hardware, but there's a lot of lock-in, and not a lot of transparency. This sounds like you'd like NVIDIA to open-source all their software. I see this type of request a lot, but I don't see it happening. NVIDIA's main competitive advantage over AMD and Intel is its software stack. AMD could release a 2x powerful GPGPU tomorrow for half the price and most current NVIDIA users wouldn't care because wh…

Post by pjmlp » Fri, May 15, 2020, 5:31 AM UTC

fulafel wrote: post #276

pjmlp wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OpenCL isn't also supported on Android, where Google pushes Renderscript instead, their own C99 dialect, yet I don't see any uprising against Google. If the 139 member companies (taking NVidia out) listed here aren't able to provide the same quality in hardware, programming language and eco-system improvements against those from NVidia, and vote for a NVidia employee as chairman, then they deserve what they get. http…

OpenCL used to be supported on Android (But not required on by Google). Currently, Vulkan _is_ required by Google[1] and is probably the future path to GPU compute. [1] https://www.androidpolice.com/2019/05/07/vulkan-1-1-will-be-...

Post by pjmlp » Fri, May 15, 2020, 5:51 AM UTC

thelittleone wrote: post #233

bhouston wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And even before that there was: * GeForce (for Andrea Geforce, the first to use the color electric green) * Riva (for Jose Riva, the discoverer that you can use TNT to generate electricity.)

Wow Riva, that brand name brings back memories. Almost as magical as 3dfx and Voodoo. (which NVIDIA ultimately acquired). Truly game changing hardware. Thanks Scott, Gary and Ross (founders of 3Dfx) you cards gave me and my friends thousands of hours of enjoyment.