NVIDIA Launches Latest Quadro Mobile and Desktop Workstation GPUs, Kepler Comes to Town

Not to be outdone by AMD, NVIDIA announced its own new mobile and desktop workstation GPUs today designed for professionals with serious graphics processing needs.

On the desktop workstation side, NVIDIA introduced the second generation of its Maximus platform, which now features Kepler architecture. Maximus employs parallel processing with the NVIDIA Tesla K20 GPU computing accelerator and the NVIDIA Quadro K5000 GPU running graphics functions and automatically shifts workloads to the best chip for the job.

NVIDIA Quadro K5000
NVIDIA Quadro K5000

The Quadro K5000 will be available as a standalone desktop GPU by October, and starting in December, the Tesla K20 ($3,199) and Quadro K5000 ($2,249) will be available as a pair--a very, very powerful pair.

Mobile workstations get an array of intense new GPUs, too, because hey, just because you’re animating a film or designing a bridge doesn’t mean you don’t want to sit at a Starbucks while you work every once in a while. The latest Quadro mobile GPUs boast double the CUDA cores of the last generation and feature large frame buffers and GPU memories, AA enhancements, DisplayPort 1.2 with support for resolutions up to 3840x2160 (60Hz), and bindless textures.

NVIDIA Quadro K5000 ports
NVIDIA Quadro K5000 ports

NVIDIA’s new mobile lineup includes the Quadro K5000M, K4000M, K3000M, K2000M, K1000M, and K500M and are already available in mobile workstations from HP, Dell, Lenovo, and Fujitsu.

For more of the gritty details, peep the press releases below.

NVIDIA Quadro K5000

NVIDIA Maximus Fuels Workstation Revolution with Kepler Architecture
World’s Fastest, Most Efficient GPU Comes to Design and Creative Professionals in Latest NVIDIA Professional Flagship GPU Platform

SIGGRAPH 2012 — LOS ANGELES — Aug. 7, 2012 —NVIDIA today launched the second generation of its breakthrough workstation platform, NVIDIA® Maximus™, featuring Kepler™, the fastest, most efficient GPU architecture.

The Maximus platform, introduced in November, gives workstation users the ability to simultaneously perform complex analysis and visualization on a single machine. Now supported by Kepler-based GPUs, Maximus delivers unparalleled performance and efficiency to professionals in fields as varied as manufacturing, visual effects and oil exploration.

Maximus initially broke new ground as a single system that handles interactive graphics and the compute-intensive number crunching required to simulate or render them – resulting in dramatically accelerated workflows. With this second generation of Maximus, compute work is assigned to run on the new NVIDIA Tesla® K20 GPU computing accelerator, freeing up the new NVIDIA Quadro K5000 GPU to handle graphics functions. Maximus unified technology transparently and automatically assigns visualization and simulation or rendering work to the right processor.

“With the parallel processing capabilities enabled by NVIDIA Maximus systems, we can now be 10 times more creative,” said Alan Barrington, a designer at the Mercedes-Benz Advanced Design Center California. “With the NVIDIA Maximus-powered environment, we can continue to refine and improve our design, right up to the last minute. We can stay efficient and multitask. We no longer have to settle for less or to compromise on our creativity.”

NVIDIA Maximus: Boosting Graphics and Compute

Powered by the Kepler architecture, the second generation of Maximus improves both the visualization and computation capabilities of the platform.

Key NVIDIA Quadro K5000 GPU features include:

· Bindless Textures that give users the ability to reference over 1 million textures directly in memory while reducing CPU overhead

· FXAA/TXAA film-style anti-aliasing technologies for outstanding image quality

· Increased frame buffer capacity of 4GB, plus a next-generation PCIe-3 bus interconnect that accelerates data movement by 2x compared with PCIe-2

· An all-new display engine capable of driving up to four displays simultaneously with a single K5000

· Display Port 1.2 support for resolutions up to 3840x2160 @60Hz

Key NVIDIA Tesla K20 GPU features include:

· SMX streaming multiprocessor technology for up to a 3x performance per watt advantage1

· Dynamic Parallelism and Hyper-Q GPU technologies for simplified parallel programming and dramatically faster performance

Availability and Pricing

Second generation NVIDIA Maximus-powered desktop workstations featuring the new NVIDIA Quadro K5000 ($2,249 MSRP, USD) plus the new NVIDIA Tesla K20 GPU ($3,199 MSRP, USD) will be available starting in December 2012. The NVIDIA Quadro K5000 will be available as a separate discrete desktop GPU starting in October 2012.


New NVIDIA Quadro Mobile GPUs Provide Fastest Professional Graphics Performance ‘To Go’
New Lineup Built on NVIDIA Kepler Architecture Widely Available

SIGGRAPH 2012 — LOS ANGELES — Aug. 7, 2012 — NVIDIA officially announced today a new line of Quadro® professional graphics solutions for the latest leading mobile workstations. Designed for engineers, industrial designers, animators, and film & video editors that need to take their work with them, these new Quadro graphics processing units (GPUs) feature Kepler, the fastest, most efficient GPU architecture. Kepler delivers impressive performance gains over previous generations with the same power budget as the previous generation Quadro mobile graphics solutions.

The latest NVIDIA Quadro mobile GPUs are the most powerful ever offered. With at least double the number of NVIDIA CUDA® cores of previous generations, new Quadro mobile GPUs provide incredibly fast performance across a broad range of design, animation, and video applications.

The new mobile lineup includes the NVIDIA Quadro K5000M, Quadro K4000M, Quadro K3000M, Quadro K2000M, Quadro K1000M, and Quadro K500M. These GPUs incorporate a number of key features, including:

· Large frame buffers and GPU memories - Offering up to 4GB, with ultra-fast bandwidth for fast, smooth displaying of complex models and scenes, as well as computation of large datasets.

· Stunning image quality - Incredible anti-aliasing enhancements with a new post process called FXAA eliminates jaggies and delivers crisp edges in a scene with essentially zero impact to interactivity – a huge benefit for CAD designers, stylists and animators.

· DisplayPort 1.2 functionality - Achieves the highest resolution possible in a single digital connector. As workflows get more complex, designers and creative professionals need to maximize their productivity by utilizing all the available desktop space – these new NVIDIA Quadro mobile GPUs support a seamless multi-monitor workspace and enable professionals to see more and do more, including:

§ Never before possible resolutions: up to 4K x 2K resolution (3840x2160 @ 60Hz)

§ Never before possible refresh rates: to support Stereoscopic displays: 120Hz @ 2560x1600

§ Full audio support

§ Multi-stream support –enable multiple display streams over a single connector channel

· Bindless Textures - Dramatically increases the number of unique textures available to shaders at run-time enabling vastly more different materials and richer texture detail in scenes.

· NVIDIA 3D Vision® Pro compatibility

· NVIDIA Optimus™ advanced hardware power-management technology for longer battery life and improved performance

ISV Certifications and Support

Leading software vendors certify and support NVIDIA Quadro-powered mobile workstations, including Adobe, ANSYS, Autodesk, and Dassault Systèmes.

Availability and Pricing

The world’s leading mobile workstation manufacturers, including HP, Dell, Lenovo, and Fujitsu, have relied on NVIDIA GPUs for over a decade, and have already integrated these new Quadro mobile GPUs into their newest mobile workstations:

· New NVIDIA Quadro Kepler-powered HP EliteBook Mobile Workstations include the HP EliteBook 8570w and 8770w, and are available now.

· New NVIDIA Quadro Kepler-powered Dell Precision Mobile Workstations include the Dell Precision M6700, M6700 Covet and M4700, and are available now.

· The new Lenovo W530 ThinkPad mobile workstation is now available and features either the new NVIDIA Quadro K1000M or Quadro K2000M.

· New Fujitsu CELSIUS H920 and H720 mobile workstations with new NVIDIA Quadro Kepler mobile pro graphics are available now in EMEA, India and Japan.

For more information about NVIDIA and Quadro Mobile Graphics Solutions, please visit www.nvidia.com/quadromobile.