NVIDIA VP Declares Moore's Law Dead, GPUs Are Computing's Only Hope

Daily Tech ^ | May 3, 2010 10:33 AM | Jason Mick (Blog)

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

In NVIDIA's eye the parallelism of the GPU is the only future for computing

NVIDIA has struggled this time around in the GPU war.  Its first DirectX 11 products were delivered a full seven months after AMD's.  While its new units are at last trickling onto the market and are very powerful, they're also hot, loud, and power hogs.  However, NVIDIA is staking much on the prediction that the computer industry will be ditching traditional architectures and moving towards parallel designs; a movement which it sees its CUDA GPU computing as an ideal solution for.

Intel and NVIDIA have long traded jabs, and Intel's recent failed GPU bid, Larrabee, does little to warm to the ice.  In a recent op-ed entitled "Life After Moore's Law", published in Forbes, NVIDIA VP Bill Dally attacks the very foundation of Intel's business -- Moore's Law -- declaring it dead.

Moore's Law stemmed from a paper [PDF] published by Gordon Moore 45 years ago this month.  Moore, co-founder of Intel, predicted in the paper that the number of transistors per area on a circuit would double every 2 years (later revised to 18 months).  This prediction was later extend to predict that computing power would roughly double every 18 months, a prediction that became known as Moore's Law.

Now with die shrinks becoming more problematic, NVIDIA is convinced the end is nigh for Moore's Law (and Intel).

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Well....

The end is near...

[Drango]

Women and children hit hardest!

Ooppsss...wrong thread.

[Paladin2]

Time for Intel to repent.

[wbill]

Remember how "We'd never need more than 640K of RAM"?

How's that MASSIVE, I'LL NEVER, EVER USE it ALL, 1 gig hard drive from 1996 working for you?

I'll need to check my portfolio and make sure that NVidia isn't in it. Worries me when execs try to talk down their technology.

[rarestia]

I have a 1.2 kW power supply and 4 120mm fans for my new i7 mobo with dual nVidia GTX470s. The ambient temps run around 65-70C and the noise is almost unbearable. I’ve been researching sound dampening materials, and I think I’ll be insulating my case. The performance is unreal, though. There’s absolutely nothing I can’t do/play, and at almost $2500 for the whole system, that damn well better be the case!

[newfreep]

But can it run my PONG game?

[OldDeckHand]

'I have a 1.2 kW power supply and 4 120mm fans for my new i7 mobo with dual nVidia GTX470s."

One of my sons, and the family's official computer-builder, has dual GPUs in his machine. It is REALLY noisy, to the point that it aggravates me to even use it. And, don't even get me going on all the stupid lights emanating from the case.

[AFreeBird]

There was a posting earlier about graphine replacing silicone, allowing processors to blow past the THz threshold without an increase in heat or power consumption.

Might be coming sooner than you’d think.

[Zathras]

I have an i7 3.2ghz and its all cooled by 1 fan all in a micro atx chassis and you can hardly hear it even with the cover off.

CPU temp stays around 40degC most of the time.

[AFreeBird]

Shhh he pimped his ride so to speak.

Kids these days.

[AFreeBird]

Graphine is next

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Some folks like all of those lights,....and they are not all just young ones...

Power computing is good....

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Looked at Water cooling on the GPU’s?

[mowowie]

My old pentium 4 PC had 5 fans alone built on the mother board. Add to that the CPU fan, GPU fan, 2 fans in the PSU and 3 case fans.
12 fans!
I think i’m missing one, i remembered 13 fans...

The thing used to sound like a F-14 taking off.

You have a SWEET setup though I never build top line PC’s.
When i built my Q6600 PC last year i7 MB’s were going for over 300 Bucks.
The DDR3 memory and CPU prices were outrageous.

So for a lot les money i built the Q6600 and overclocked it from 2.6MZ to 3.4 and bought the cheapest GTX 260 i could find.
Great computer and i saved lots of cash.

I will probably build your PC in about a year in a half.

[mowowie]

Whoops, meant 2.4 to 3.4GHz.

[dangerdoc]

It’s the dual GPU cards that’s making the racket. But considering they have the computing power of a super computer, the noise is worth it for some.

I have an i7 notebook with discrete Nvidia graphics. Nothing compared to the game rigs but astounding compared to my old dual core integrated graphics notebook and makes no noise.

Currently, I using it as a DVR running in the background.

[rabidralph]

I have i7 and GTX260 and my system is loud enough—about half the noise of a blow dryer turned on Low. But I’m enjoying the power.

[Darth Reardon]

Did you by chance use fans that run at the same RPM? I made that mistake some years ago with a dual CPU system.

[rarestia]

Yeah, the fan speed issue nipped me a few years ago. That combined with AMD’s qSpeed/control (the name escapes me) fan control on the mobo caused me to lose an Athlon FX64 CPU. I run all of the fans off of the PSU now.

As far as liquid cooling, I ran liquid cooling on my old Asus A7N8X mobo and it worked incredibly well. The mobo came with copper liquid channels already. The i7 board I have doesn’t have those, and I wasn’t going to spend an additional $250 for the conversion kit. I have an independent cold-containment system and heat-dispersion unit that makes air cooling incredibly efficient. I’m getting close to 85% airflow efficiency with CFM models, so I’m comfortable with the temp. There are newer Intel procs that are designed to run from 75-80C without breaking a sweat (no pun intended).

The noise is definitely difficult. My machine is in our den, and it makes TV watching nearly impossible. The fiancee has to watch TV in the kitchen or the bedroom when I’m playing games. My ProLiant DL360 G5 server that runs my network is quieter! I’m hoping that the heat/noise insulation I’m looking at will bring the noise down ~25dB. I’ll report on that when it’s done.