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Published in Graphics

Nvidia declares Moore's law dead

by on03 May 2010

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Multicores are bull, parallel is the bomb


Although
one would think that Nvidia is keeping busy these days in trying to catch up with its red competitor, it seems like some within the company have enough spare time on their hands to try and talk their way out of this situation. This time around however, Nvidia took a stab at both Intel and AMD. 

Moore’s law, which holds up nicely since it has been “put to practice” 45 years ago says that the number of transistors on an integrated circuit would double roughly every 2 years. Nvidia’s VP, Bill Dally on the other hand says how Moore’s Law is done and dusted and how it’s time for new ways of tackling today’s computational demands.

After saying that the process of adding cores to existing architectures is like building “an airplane by putting wings on a train”, Dally conveniently offers the “best” and “only” solution, which just so happens to be his company’s much touted parallel computing.

Interestingly enough, Dally puts a lot of emphasis on conserving energy. He adds how adding cores is adding to consumption without matching it in performance, so on paper, we’d probably agree that Nvidia should be our savior.

Unfortunately, this is coming from the same company that launched Fermi, so we should take the energy consumption claims with a grain of salt. Perhaps a user’s comment sums it up best: ”Considering the joke Fermi has become with regard to die size, heat, and relative lack of scale of performance he is best advised to take Moore's law more seriously and produce a decent product.”

More here.

Last modified on 03 May 2010
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