LaptopBlog2Go

For those of you that do not get the news letter here is what you are missing out on.

May just put them here as I get them.

Friday, May 14, 2010, Issue #21 To see a web-based version of this message, click here WELCOME Welcome to this week’s issue of “CUDA: Week in Review,” a weekly newsletter for the worldwide CUDA and GPU Computing community. Contact us at: cuda_week_in_review@nvidia.com. Follow us on Twitter: www.twitter.com/gpucomputing. Reminder: The GPU Technology Conference (GTC), Sept. 20-23, is accepting proposals for GPU-related sessions on topics ranging from astronomy to energy exploration to video processing. The deadline is June 1. Learn more: www.nvidia.com/gtc and http://www.nvidia.com/object/call_for_submissions.html CUDA NEWS Interview with Jen-Hsun Huang, NVIDIA CEO In a “behind the scenes” interview at a recent technology conference, CEO Jen-Hsun Huang speaks about NVIDIA’s focus areas, including parallel computing, and the importance of a culture that encourages innovation. Watch the video here: http://blogs.nvidia.com/ntersect/2010/05/behind-the-scenes-with-jenhsun-huang-at-the-fire-conference.html Chief Scientist Bill Dally Awarded Prize for Computer Architecture Leading computing organizations honored NVIDIA chief scientist Bill Dally with the Eckert-Mauchly Award, a prestigious prize for computer architecture. The Association for Computing Machinery and IEEE Computer Society called Dally a visionary for advancing the state of computing using parallel processors. Read the Channel Web article here: http://www.crn.com/hardware/224701748 CUDA APPS Run CUDA Applications from Silverlight Microsoft Silverlight is a development platform for creating interactive user experiences for the web, desktop, and mobile applications. It’s now possible to invoke a CUDA application directly from Silverlight. This enables Silverlight games and applications to take advantage of a CUDA-based PC. (To dive further into this topic, see: www.planetmarshall.co.uk/2010/01/silverlight-and-cuda-interop/). CUDA ZONE New on CUDA Zone: Gravity Modeling with CUDA Extract: “For models exceeding 10,000 cells we achieve an acceleration of a factor of 40 for scalar data and 30 for tensor data compared to a single thread on the CPU. This significant acceleration allows fast computation of large models exceeding 106 model parameters and thousands of measurement sites.” Authors: M. Moorkamp and M. Jegen of IFM-GEOMAR, Kiel, Germany; A. Roberts and R. Hobbs of University of Durham, U.K. See: http://is.gd/c8e15 Note: IFM-GEOMAR focuses on the marine sciences, from sea floor geology to marine meteorology. Research is conducted worldwide in all oceans. The institute has four major divisions: ocean circulation and climate dynamics, marine bio-geochemistry, marine ecology and the dynamics of the ocean floor. In addition, the institute operates research vessels including a manned submersible and deep-sea robots. CUDA Zone Submissions: Have a CUDA-related paper, research, or app? Show it on CUDA Zone: http://is.gd/8G3E4 CUDA JOB OF THE WEEK The Georg-August-University in Gottingen, Germany is seeking a motivated PhD student – preferably with a computer vision background. The candidate should be interested in an interdisciplinary project involving computer vision analysis of changing scenes and the objects therein. Using this research, the intent is to build a system for plant treatment. Specifically, the project will be centered on the problem of recognizing and tracking parts of growing plants. Good programming skills (C++, CUDA) are required. A lively, stimulating and well-equipped scientific environment is provided. - For information, contact Prof. Florentin Worgotter at: worgott@bccn-goettingen.de - Learn about the organization: http://www.bccn-goettingen.de/AboutBCCN CUDA EDUCATION University Courses NEW: “Programmable GPUs for General Purpose Parallel Computing” (undergrad level), Shiraz University, Iran (Prof. Reza Azimi). See: http://www.cse.shirazu.ac.ir/~azimi/gpu89 CUDA Training NEW: CUDA training from SagivTech, Ra’anana, Israel - CUDA course: July 12-14 - GPU/Image Processing course: Aug. 2-4 See: http://www.sagivtech.com/24054.html GPU Computing Webinars (CUDA C, OpenCL, Parallel Nsight and more…) OSee May webinar schedule: http://developer.nvidia.com/object/gpu_computing_online.html CUDA and Academia Over 350 universities are teaching CUDA and GPU Computing courses. - See the list: http://www.nvidia.com/object/cuda_courses_and_map.html CUDA CALENDAR – Global Derivatives Trading & Risk Management May 17-21, Paris http://www.icbi-events.com/globalderivatives/ – ISC ´10 GPU Computing Workshops May 30, Hamburg, Germany http://www.nvidia.com/object/isc2010.html – European Association of Geoscientists & Engineers (EAGE) Conference June 14-17, Barcelona http://www.eage.org/events/index.php?eventid=297 – Parallel Execution of Sequential Programs on Multi-Core Architectures June 20, France http://cccp.eecs.umich.edu/pespma/cfp.html – GPGPU Briefing for Financial Services (Microsoft/NVIDIA) June 21, NYC https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032451443&culture=en-US – GPUs in Chemistry and Materials Science June 28-30, Univ. of Pittsburgh http://www.sam.pitt.edu/education/gpu2010.register.php – Parallel Symbolic Computation 2010 (PASCO) July 21-23, France http://pasco2010.imag.fr/contest.html – Symposium on Chemical Computations on GPGPUs Aug. 22-26, Boston http://illinois.edu/lb/article/2101/36281 – Unconventional High Performance Computing 2010 (UCHPC 2010) Aug. 31-Sept. 1, Italy http://www.lrr.in.tum.de/~weidendo/uchpc10/ – GPU Technology Conference 2010 Sept. 20-23, San Jose, Calif. http://www.nvidia.com/gtc (now accepting proposals from industry and academia) (To list an event, email: cuda_week_in_review@nvidia.com) CUDA RESOURCES CULA LAPACK GPU-accelerated linear algebra library from EM Photonics: http://www.culatools.com NVIDIA Parallel Nsight Download the Parallel Nsight Beta: www.nvidia.com/nsight CUDA Toolkit Download CUDA Toolkit 3.0: http://bit.ly/aKCENp CUDA Documentation Download developer guides and documentation: http://developer.nvidia.com/object/gpucomputing.html CUDA Books – Programming Massively Parallel Processors by D. Kirk, W. Hwu: http://is.gd/7bNYP – See additional books here: http://www.nvidia.com/object/cuda_books.html CUDA ON THE WEB – Follow CUDA & GPU Computing on Twitter: www.twitter.com/gpucomputing – Network with other developers: www.gpucomputing.net – Stayed tuned to GPGPU news and events: www.gpgpu.org – Learn more about CUDA on CUDA Zone: www.nvidia.com/cuda – CUDA on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/nvidiacuda About CUDA CUDA is NVIDIA’s parallel computing hardware architecture. NVIDIA provides a complete toolkit for programming on the CUDA architecture, supporting standard computing languages such as C, C++, and Fortran as well as APIs such as OpenCL and DirectCompute. See previous issues of CUDA: Week in Review: http://www.nvidia.com/object/cuda_week_in_review_newsletter.html Send comments and suggestions to: cuda_week_in_review@nvidia.com You are receiving this email because you have previously expressed interest in NVIDIA products and technologies. Click here to opt in specifically to CUDA: Week in Review. Feel free to forward this email to customers, partners and colleagues. If you would like to stop receiving emails from NVIDIA, click here to unsubscribe. Copyright © 2010 NVIDIA Corporation. All rights reserved. 2701 San Tomas Expressway, Santa Clara, CA 95050.

Here is a list of all the current GPU’s from NVIDIA’s website.

It now includes the yet unreleased 300M GPU’s and how they compare with older series GPU’s

The 300M’s look to be a die shrunk version of the 200M series as they have identical specs.

Each GPU link will take you to further Specifications.

CATEGORY	PRODUCT	Processor cores	PhysX	Gaming Performance	Playable Resolution	PureVideo HD
ENTHUSIAST	GeForce GTX 280M GeForce GTX 260M	128 112	Yes Yes	60x 60x	1920 x 1080	Yes Yes
HIGH PERFORMANCE	GeForce GTS 360M GeForce GTS 350M GeForce GTS 260M GeForce GTS 250M GeForce GTS 160M	96 96 96 96 64	Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes	40x 40x 40x 40x 40x	1920 x 1080	Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
PERFORMANCE	GeForce GT 335M GeForce GT 330M GeForce GT 325M GeForce GT 240M GeForce GT 230M GeForce GT 130M GeForce 9600M GT	72 48 48 48 48 32 32		20x 20x 20x 20x 20x 20x 20x	1680 x 1050	Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
MAINSTREAM	GeForce 310M GeForce 305M GeForce G210M GeForce G110M GeForce G105M GeForce 9400M G GeForce 9300M GS	16 16 16 16 8 16 8		5x 5x 10x 5x 4x 5x 4x	1280 x 720	Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
VALUE	GeForce 9100M G	8		3x	1024 x 768	Yes

What an awsome little machine, and it’s NVIDIA powered too boot, the Netbook that kicks butt.

UPDATE: Hands-on impressions added below.

LAS VEGAS–Alienware laptops are powerful, but they’re not exactly known for being ultraportable or affordable. At Dell’s press conference this morning, however, a chief focus was put on their new M11x laptop, which seems to be attacking both ends head-on. In a form approaching Netbook size, the 11.6-inch laptop comes packed with switchable graphics, including an Nvidia GT335M GPU as its main powerhouse, and will sell this spring for under $1000.

According to Dell representatives, the M11x will achieve over six hours of battery life in its lower-graphics function mode, and with a hot switch to the faster Nvidia GPU that will take under two seconds and not require logging out, will attain around two hours of “intense gaming.” The tiny laptop was shown off in the hands of Dell executives, and an M11x was also connected to a larger monitor to demonstrate how the laptop–with DisplayPort, HDMI, and VGA ports–can connect to larger monitors and HDTVs to play games as well. Dell claims that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 will run at over 30fps in full-HD mode and settings set to high, which would certainly be a feat.

Hands on update: We got a chance for some hands-on time with the M11x, and made several observations: first, its processor is in fact an Intel Core 2 ULV, the U7300–this is the same processor we’ve seen in higher-end thin-and-lights. It’s augmented with Nvidia’s GT335M discrete graphics, making it a kind of a hybrid machine. Its purportedly strong non-gaming-mode battery life would be because of its ULV processor.

Compared to other Alienware laptops, the M11x is surprisingly slim. In fact, its overall dimensions weren’t far off from the Asus EeePC 12.1-inch Atom Netbook we were carrying along with us. It’s a bit angular and blocky, but the M11x represents a massive move to true portability for the Alienware brand.

We were also told that, even with the advertised “under $1000″ price, models will be sold for as low as $799. That’s close to what standard thin-and-lights sold for earlier last year.

Taken from CES news, interesting to see Sony finally coming back to NVIDIA based notebooks.

(Credit: Sony)

Fighting the urge to go bigger with 17- and 18-inch laptops, Sony’s latest Blu-ray multimedia machine is a 16-inch system, called the Vaio F.

It features a 16.4-inch 1080p display, and is one of the only laptops to offer an optional Blu-ray recordable drive, as opposed to the usual play-only drives. Graphics come from Nvidia’s GeForce GT300M chip, and the CPU on the three preconfigured builds we saw was the very high-end Intel Core i7 720QM.

Sony always trumpets its custom media creation and playback software as an alternative to similar apps such as Windows Media Player or iTunes. The latest version of Sony’s Media Gallery software offers features such as taking imported photos, video, and music and automatically stitching them together into a movie. Also new is an “assist” button on the system tray, automatically connecting to the system’s built-in Vaio Care troubleshooting software.

Perhaps the most interesting development is the inclusion of Sony’s new Transfer Jet technology. This promising component allows you to transfer photos … Read the full post at CNET’s CES 2010 blog

These are from Dell and introduce the new Precision M6500′s Quadro FX 2800m and 3800m.

Forceware 187.37 Windows 7 / Vista x32

Forceware 187.37 Windows 7 / Vista x32

Forceware 187.37 Windows XP x32

Forceware 187.37 Windows XP x64

Seeing I’ve just done some NVIDIA Geforce 200M current Notebook GPU’s thoughts and examples.
The NVIDIA Geforce 300M is not all that far away.

The Desktop version NVIDIA Geforce GTX 380 looks like it should be released on the 27th November.
The Mobile versions have been supported in INFs for sometime now, so there is a chance that these may come out at a similar time (lets hope so)

But here is what we can look forward to with the new NVIDIA Geforce 300M series:

40nm Fabrication
2Billion Transistor Count
DirectX 11 support
Up to 512x Pixel and Vertex shaders
Up to 64 ROPS
Up to 128 Textures per clock
Shader version 5.0
GDDR5 Video Memory support

I think the Mobile versions may see a big jump over the 200M series.
Now that the Notebook rules supreme in sales we should start to see preferential treatment so long given to Desktops.

But time will tell.

Here are the specs of NVIDIA’s 200M Series GPU’s, hopefully this will shed some light on what each one does.
Should help if you are looking at purchasing a new Notebook and what to go for to match the needs you may have.
If you could help fill on some of the missing specs that would be appreciated.

NVIDIA Geforce GTX 280M
562 Gigaflops
128x CUDA Cores
585Mhz Core Clock
1493 Mhz Processor Clock

950Mhz Memory Clock
256bit Memory interface
61GB/sec Memory Bandwidth

This currently is the most powerful GPU in NVIDIA’s arsenal, for those that demand the best with no worries about cost this is as good as it gets today.
This should really be on the 18.4″ full HD LCD Notebooks coming out now.
Battery life will be marginal but who cares when you are kicking butt in any current game

Sager NP9280
Sager NP8760

NVIDIA Geforce GTX 260M
462 Gigaflops
112x CUDA Cores
550Mhz Core Clock
1375 Mhz Processor Clock

950Mhz Memory Clock
256bit Memory interface
61GB/sec Memory Bandwidth

This would be a better choice for those on a budget, still very good performance, not the high price premium of the NVIDIA GTX 280M
The same Memory bandwidth as the 280M but a few less CUDA cores.
This would run nicely on any resolution LCD and be ideal on a 17 or 18″ LCD.
May struggle in the most intense graphical games, but will last a bit longer on a battery.
This is something I would go for.

ASUS G60J
ASUS G71GX
Asus G51J
Alienware M15x

NVIDIA Geforce GTS 260M
396 Gigaflops
96x CUDA Cores
550Mhz Core clock
1375Mhz Processor Clock

1800Mhz Memory Clock
128bit Memory interface
??GB/sec Memory Bandwidth

This as below best suited to a smaller resolution display (ie 1440×900) and 15-16″ LCD

NVIDIA Geforce GTS 250M
360 Gigaflops
96x CUDA Cores
500Mhz Core Clock
1250Mhz Processor Clock

1600Mhz Memory Clock
128bit Memory interface
??GB/sec Memory Bandwidth

This GPU (to me) would be ideal in a 15-16″ Notebook with a 1440×900 or similar LCD.
Solid perfomance, should give a reasonable battery life.
As with the 230/240M the 250M will slightly slower and give slightly better battery life than the 260M

ACER ASPIRE 8940G
Toshiba Qosmio X505
MSI GT640
MSI GT740

NVIDIA Geforce GT 240M
174 Gigaflops
48x CUDA Cores
550Mhz Core Clock
1210 Mhz Processor Clock

800Mhz Memory Clock (GDDR3)
128bit Memory interface
??GB/sec Memory Bandwidth

This GPU is slightly faster than the NVIDIA Geforce 230M really on a par with it, as below best suited to a 14″ or low end 15″ notebook.
About the same batter life as the 230M can be expected.

Alienware M15x
ASUS M60J

NVIDIA Geforce GT 230M
158 Gigaflops
48x CUDA Cores
500Mhz Core Clock
1100 Mhz Processor Clock

1066Mhz Memory Clock (GDDR3)
128bit Memory interface
25GB/sec Memory Bandwidth

A few Notebooks are shipping with these GPU’s and woefully some OEM’s have put this in 18.4″ full HD LCD Notebooks, the GPU will struggle to play games at that resolution.
This would be an ideal GPU for a 14″ Notebook with a 1280×800 resolution LCD, giving reasonable performance and good battery life.
Probably a better choice as it will be cheaper than a NVIDIA Geforce 240M notebook but only marginally slower and slightly better battery life

HP PAVILION DV8T QUAD EDITION SERIES

NVIDIA Geforce GT 220M
?? Gigaflops
32x CUDA Cores
500Mhz Core Clock
1250Mhz Processor Clock

800Mhz Memory Clock (GDDR3)
64bit Memory interface
??GB/sec Memory Bandwidth

This GPU is not on NVIDIA’s website so can’t really comment on it, as we may not see it.
Should be a jump in performance over the 210M below but quite a bit slower than than 230M above.
Probably will be a better entry level GPU.

NVIDIA Geforce G 210M
72 Gigaflops
16x CUDA Cores
625Mhz Core Clock
150 Mhz Processor Clock

800Mhz Memory Clock (GDDR3)
64bit Memory interface
??GB/sec Memory Bandwidth

This is the bottom end of the NVIDIA Geforce 200M line, if you are on a budget and are looking at battery life then this is for you, will give better performance than an Intel GMA based solution and also give the best battery life.
Modern games will struggle as there are few CUDA cores and more importantly the memory interface is narrow.

LG today unveiled a new laptop for the Korean Market. The Xnote P510 is said to be one of their premium models of this year and will come in three different flavours – P510-UP98K, P510-UP95K, P510-UP88K (depending on the choice of processor, storage and RAM).

The 15.4-inch notebook has some distinct features like so-called Rubber Keyboard that has some rubber material textures, vibration when a user presses power button and a light emitting touch pad. The notebook will start retailing from next week.

Detailed specs:

P510-UP98K
- LCD: Premium LED backlit LCD 15.4″ WXGA + (1440×900)
- CPU: Intel Core2 Duo T9800 Centrino 2 processor technology (2.98GHz, L2 cache, 6MB, 1066MHz)
- Memory: 4GB DDR3 1066 MHz
– Graphics: Nvidia GeForce GT 130M 512MB
- HDD: SSD 64GB + HDD 500GB
- ODD: USB external
- Wireless LAN: Intel 802.11 a/g/n
– OS: Windows Vista Premium
- Weight: about 2.3kg

P510-UP95K
- LCD: Premium LED backlit LCD 15.4″ WXGA + (1440×900)
- CPU: Intel Core2 Duo T9550 Centrino 2 processor technology
(2.66GHz, L2 cache, 6MB, 1066MHz)
- Memory: 4GB DDR3 1066 MHz
– Graphics:

Nvidia GeForce GT 130M 512MB
- HDD: HDD 500GB
- ODD: USB external
- Wireless LAN: Intel 802.11 a/g /n
– OS:

Windows Vista Premium
- Weight: about 2.3kg

P510-UP88K
- LCD: Premium LED backlit LCD 15.4″ WXGA + (1440×900)
- CPU: Intel Core2 Duo P8700 Centrino 2 processor technology
(2.53GHz, L2 cache, 3MB, 1066MHz)
- Memory: 2GB DDR3 1066 MHz
– Graphics:

Nvidia GeForce GT 130M 512MB
- HDD: HDD 320GB
- ODD: USB external
- Wireless LAN: Intel 802.11 a/g/n
– OS:

Windows Vista Premium
- Weight: about 2.3kg

World First – ASUS N81Vg Features the New NVIDIA® GeForce™ GT 120M Graphics Processor

ASUS and NVIDIA® Deliver a Smart Entertainment Companion for the Road

Taipei, Taiwan, February 10, 2009 – ASUS, a pioneer in the adoption of cutting-edge notebook graphics, announced today the ASUS N81Vg, the world’s first notebook to feature the new NVIDIA® GeForce™ GT 120M graphics processing unit (GPU). The NVIDIA® GeForce™ GT 120M GPU features NVIDIA CUDA™ technology with 32 processor cores, DirectX 10 support, and 1080p High Definition video playback through NVIDIA® PureVideo® HD technology. Coupled with the ASUS N81Vg’s 14-inch LED backlit display, the NVIDIA® GeForce™ GT 120M delivers unrivalled visual clarity and vibrancy.

Combining Effortless Mobility with Stunning Graphics Performance
The pairing of the ASUS N81Vg and the NVIDIA® GeForce™ GT 120M provides users with numerous multimedia options in a small, highly portable notebook designed to take entertainment to the streets.

“The ASUS N81Vg uses the GeForce GT 120M GPU to deliver a visual computing experience far superior to other notebooks in its category today,” said Rene Haas, General Manager, Notebook Products, NVIDIA. “With 32 powerful processing cores, the GeForce 120M GPU makes photo editing, video editing, movie ripping, high-definition Blu-ray playback and gaming a reality on 14-inch notebooks.”

“We are proud to offer consumers a notebook that is capable of providing spectacular graphics and stunning clarity while maintaining effortless mobility,” said Alvin Chou, Senior Product Manager of ASUS’ Notebook Business Unit. “By combining sublime graphics performance, smart technologies and supreme ease of use, the N81Vg is the ideal notebook for those who would like to enjoy multimedia to the fullest.”

NVIDIA® GeForce™ GT 120M – Fast Forward Visual Experience for All
The NVIDIA® GeForce™ GT 120M features the latest NVIDIA® CUDA™ technology, which harnesses a massive 110 gigaflops of computing power for a myriad of applications such as video conversion and High Definition enhanced DVD playback with up to 15 times higher frame rate. Users can enjoy greater productivity with CUDA-enhanced photo and video editing applications such as CyberLink PowerDirector and motionDSP vReveal. With DirectX 10 support, users can experience realistic in-game texture details, high dynamic range lighting and special visual effects. NVIDIA PureVideo® HD handles 100% of the video decoding process, producing 1080p High Definition visuals with sharper images, smoother transitions and more vibrant colors.

With a 3DMark® 2006 score of 5,431, the ASUS N81Vg delivers up to 15 times better performance than most other 14-inch notebooks, thus satisfying discerning users with a penchant for High Definition audio and visual enjoyment while on the go.

Reliable Computing and Entertainment with Variable Power Modes
The ASUS N81Vg lasts 3 hours* in Performance mode and 4 hours* in Battery Conservation mode—in both cases an hour more than similarly-specified notebooks.

Specifications
Processor & Cache Memory – Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor T9400/P8600/P8400/P7350/T6600/T6400/T5900/T5800

Operating SystemGenuine – Windows Vista® Ultimate (other editions also available)

Chipset – Mobile Intel® PM45 Express Chipset

Main Memory – DDR2 800MHz up to 4096MB, 2x SO-DIMM

Graphics -NVIDIA® GeForce™ GT 120M

Display – 14.0″ (Glare Type, LED backlit)

Hard Drive – SATA 160GB / 250GB / 320GB/ 500GB

Optical Drive – DVD Super Multi Blu-ray DVD Combo

* Video Camera (optional) – Built-in 1.3 M Pixel camera

Dimensions and Weight – 342mm x 256mm x 36mm, 2.5kg (with 6-cell battery)

*Subject to system specifications and usage.
Specifications are subject to change without prior notice. Please visit www.asus.com for more information.