Cadalyst - May 2008 - (Page 25)

viewpoint they remain largely untapped. It measures performance in gigaFLOPs rather than gigahertz, and it brings realism to Gears of War and Crysis. It’s the ultimate quiet achiever: the GPU. That’s not a typo: the G is for graphics, and it has the pure grunt to offer a whopping 575 billion or more floating-point operations per second (575 GFLOPS), compared with the meager observed 50 or so GFLOPs for a dual-core CPU (figure 3). GPUs offer blazing performance with enormous bandwidth. They offer the ultimate opportunity for performance gains as they simply offload computations from the CPU to the GPU. It sounds relatively straightforward, but it’s not an easy task. It requires software developers to find nongraphical tasks that can be processed on the GPU. Figure 2. There is no free lunch for traditional software. Without highly concurAccessing the GPU for nongraphical, or rent software design, performance will remain static. general, purposes (GPGPU) has limitations. GPUs are designed for parallel processing GPU vs. CPU Performance using a programming technique called stream GPUs offer substantially higher performance processing. This technique allows data to be streamed in parallel, dramatically increasing data throughput and therefore cumulative computational speed. This is why a 600 MHz GPU can outperform a 3 GHz CPU: It can parallel operations massively in the same fashion as the human brain, as opposed to a CPU’s sequential practice. As a result, software developers pick and choose which operations are parallel and which ones the GPU computes at a desired level of precision. In our world, simulation is rife for GPU computations. Visualizing the aerodynamic performance of a plane, car, or train is entirely possible using a GPU, as are fluid flows, particle dispersions, collision outFigure 3. When comparing GPU vs. CPU capabilities, GPUs offer substantially comes, and other physics-based results. All higher performance. (Courtesy of NVIDIA) of these types of computations can be performed in real time and offer unparalleled interactivity and highly marketable parallel-performance measure that makes no practical sense in terms of how we work or which initiates user experiences. We are at the precipice of a GPU revolution that will fundamentally change what can be accomchanges that are counterproductive or unnatural. At best, it plished in CAD applications. Consider how the GPU market could open a world of new opportunities that positively conis growing and outperforming Moore’s Law, then consider tribute to a practice, discipline, or domain. Parallel computing offers enormous benefits to those who the potential outcomes if this trend continues. We may be a few generations away from CAD applications can envision their future needs and do so with an underthat can fully harness the power of parallel processing on the standing of how changes can improve productivity in their particular disciplines. It’s a difficult undertaking because most desktop (whether its CPU, GPU, or both), but there is no time like the present to start seriously thinking about how best to professional’s needs are immediate. To ensure tomorrow’s take advantage of increased performance. There’s also no bettechnologies will provide positive contributions to your personal, business, and industry performance, engage your CAD ter time to contribute your unique knowledge, however you can, to influence application design and technology developvendor today and help guide it down the right path. The new performance frontier is dependent on how you will plan ment. It’s how we as professionals can drive CAD innovation and foster industry progress that will help each of us build our to apply those technologies within your own practice. own — and the CAD industry’s — sustainable futures. No Free Lunch for Traditional Software Software performance is now dependent on concurrency The Quiet Achiever It may come as a huge surprise, but a powerhouse is quietly resting in today’s computers. Its capabilities are immense, yet May 2008 cadalyst www.cadalyst.com Simon Floyd is the global industry technology strategist for product lifecycle management at Microsoft Corporation. 25 http://www.cadalyst.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Cadalyst - May 2008

Cadalyst - May 2008 Contents Editor's Window Cad Central A Solid Job in AutoCAD Today’s Power — Quad-Core Workstations Performance — Tomorrow’s Possibilities Reverse Engineering an Antique Italian Treasure Trends in Reverse Engineering NextEngine 3D Scanner — Reverse-Engineering Tool Setting CAD Standards Fight for Your Hardware Rights The Jack and Jill of Ergonomics Technology for Civil Infrastructure Cad Cartoon Issue Indexes Shortcuts and Solutions

Cadalyst - May 2008

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