| NVIDIA & AMD Boost GPU Computing
Once strictly a gaming chip, the graphics processing unit is poised to serve high-performance computing needs.
by Peter Varhol
Almost since its inception, one of the major hallmarks of desktop computing has been the quest for ever-faster, smoother, and more realistic graphics processing and display. Obsolete names such as Hercules and Number Nine are part of the history and folklore of this quest for faster and more realistic graphics.
Today, fast graphics are primarily the province of NVIDIA (Santa Clara, CA) and ATI as part of AMD (Sunnyvale, CA). Any serious gamer, design engineer, or simulation specialist knows which graphics cards are best for their applications. But a funny thing happened in the drive to build better and faster graphics processors. |