NVIDIA Maximus Revolutionizes the Workstation

After 25 years of design and creative professionals anticipating a workstation that simultaneously performs complex analysis and visualization, NVIDIA announced today its arrival, with the introduction of NVIDIA® Maximus™ technology.

The new offering unleashes productivity and creativity, dramatically accelerating work by enabling a single system for the first time to simultaneously handle interactive graphics and the compute-intensive number crunching associated with the simulation or rendering of the results. These previously needed to be done in separate steps or on separate systems.

NVIDIA Maximus achieves this by bringing together the professional 3D graphics capability of NVIDIA Quadro® professional graphics processing units (GPUs) with the massive parallel-computing power of the NVIDIA Tesla™ C2075 companion processor—under a unified technology that transparently assigns work to the right processor and is certified by industry leading application vendors.

“To those of us who have spent their careers focused on workstations, NVIDIA Maximus represents a revolution,” said Jeff Brown, general manager, Professional Solutions Group, NVIDIA. “Previous workstation architectures forced designers and engineers to do compute-intensive work and graphics-intensive work serially and often offline. They can now do them at the same time, on the same machine, allowing professionals to explore more ideas faster and converge quickly on the best possible answers.”

With NVIDIA Maximus-enabled applications – such as those from Adobe, ANSYS, Autodesk, Bunkspeed, Dassault Systèmes and MathWorks – GPU compute work is assigned to run on the NVIDIA Tesla companion processor. This frees up the NVIDIA Quadro GPU to handle graphics functions, ensuring the quality and performance demanded by professional users.

“The real advantage of the Maximus technology is flexibility and increased productivity,” said Tim Ong, vice president of Mechanical Engineering for Sunnyvale, CA-based Liquid Robotics. “Allowing each engineer to do multiple things at once is transformative for our workflow. It’s a tremendous tool to allow my engineers to be flexible, to multitask, and to be more productive because they’re not waiting on computational power.”

NVIDIA Maximus Technology Immediately Available
The world’s leading workstation OEMs – including HP, Dell, Lenovo, and Fujitsu – are all offering workstations featuring NVIDIA Maximus technology, available for configuration and purchase immediately.

NVIDIA Maximus desktop workstation configurations start with the pairing of the NVIDIA Quadro 600 ($199 MSRP, USD) + NVIDIA Tesla C2075 ($2,499 MSRP, USD).

Product Design, Styling and Visualization
“Autodesk’s 3ds Max 2012 has received top scores by reviewers, and one of the reasons they cite is the new iray photorealistic renderer from NVIDIA. We’ve taken this to another level with our announcement of the ActiveShade integration with iray – giving our subscription users an interactive rendering experience – especially if they are using an NVIDIA Quadro GPU, or the new NVIDIA Maximus solution that’s up to 9X faster than a single CPU.”

-Ken Pimentel, director, Media Design, Autodesk

“Bunkspeed PRO 2012 combines Bunkspeed Shot PRO and Bunkspeed Move PRO into one easy to use interactive ray tracing package built on CUDA powered NVIDIA iray. NVIDIA Maximus powered workstations allow designers, engineers, marketers and architects to render their 3D models with Bunkspeed PRO up to 8x faster than on CPUs alone, with a whole new level of realism and interactivity.”

-Philip Lunn, founder and CEO, Bunkspeed

“By harnessing the power of GPU computing we have been able to create a more productive, high-performance, interactive user experience and, at the same time, dramatically increase the realism of visualization tools available for designers and engineers within CATIA V6. With NVIDIA Maximus, users will be able to experience the full power of these new visualization tools in their product design workflow.”

-Xavier Melkonian, director, CATIA Shape Domain, Dassault Systèmes

Engineering Simulation
“GPU computing can dramatically accelerate ANSYS engineering software simulations on workstations, in some cases doubling the number of simulations that can be considered and helping customers to adopt more pervasive use of engineering simulation. With NVIDIA Maximus platforms widely available, enterprises can now more easily take advantage of ANSYS at their desk for both interactive and computationally intensive tasks.”

-Barbara Hutchings, director of strategic partnerships at ANSYS

Digital Video Content Creation
“Adobe® Premiere® Pro CS5.5 and the Adobe Mercury Playback Engine accelerated by NVIDIA GPUs continue to lead the industry with exceptional performance in non-linear editing. NVIDIA Maximus enables video professionals to create complex, multiple-layer projects faster, further increasing their productivity and empowering their creativity.”

-Bill Roberts, director of professional video and audio
product management, Adobe

Technical Computing
“MATLAB users want to take advantage of GPUs to achieve significant speed-up of their applications quickly and easily, without making major changes to their MATLAB code. The wide availability of pre-qualified NVIDIA Maximus systems for MATLAB gives our users access to commodity platforms that deliver great productivity.”

-Loren Dean, director of Engineering, MATLAB Products, MathWorks

Workstation OEMs

“HP’s Z Workstations meet the needs of some of the most compute-intensive industries in the world. With NVIDIA Maximus technology, HP is providing a powerful, new performance solution that will enable our customers to design and analyze more efficiently, ultimately increasing ROI.”

-Jeff Wood, vice president, Worldwide Marketing, Commercial Solutions, HP

HP entry-level Z400 and top-of-the line Z800 workstations are available now worldwide.

“NVIDIA Maximus enables our customers to accelerate their visualization and complex parallel workloads. When combined with Dell Precision workstation solutions, our design, research and digital content creation customers can increase their interactivity, productivity and creative freedom.”

- Greg Weir, marketing director, Dell Precision Workstation
Product and ISV Marketing

Dell Precision T5500, R5500, and T7500 are available now worldwide.1

“Application acceleration speeds up the design process and product delivery, and with NVIDIA Maximus on Lenovo ThinkStations, users have the parallel processing power they need to boost productivity, creativity, and time-to-market. NVIDIA Maximus-class ThinkStation S20, C20, and D20 workstations transform workflows with computing and visualization capabilities that empower engineers, designers and digital content creators to achieve amazing results exponentially faster.”

- Rob Herman, director of Product and Vertical Solutions,
ThinkStation Business Unit, Lenovo

Lenovo ThinkStation S20, C20 and D20 workstations are available now worldwide.

“Our advanced and superior line of Fujitsu CELSIUS workstations, including our CELSIUS M and R series, become even more powerful and versatile performers with NVIDIA Maximus technology. Our customers demand the most innovative technology for driving the new generation of high-performance 3D modeling, animation, real-time visualization, analysis, and simulation applications–NVIDIA Maximus-powered CELSIUS workstations provide the customized visualization plus computation performance they need.”

-Dieter Heiss, head of Workplace Systems at
Fujitsu Technology Solutions

Fujitsu CELSIUS M470, R570 and R670 workstations are available now in EMEAI and Japan.

New Software With Integrated NVIDIA iray Simplifies 3D Rendering and Animation

Bunkspeed PRO™ 2012 combines the best of our previous Bunkspeed SHOT PRO™ and Bunkspeed MOVE PRO™ into a single integrated system featuring the NVIDIA® iray® 2 raytrace engine, a full keyframe animation system, and cloud based asset library, simplifying the 3D rendering and animation process, and shattering the barrier to create “Hollywood” quality content.

Bunkspeed®, a leading developer of 3D rendering and animation technology, today introduces the Bunkspeed PRO Suite 2012. Bunkspeed PRO™ Suite 2012 that builds on Bunkspeed SHOT™ and Bunkspeed MOVE™ with powerful new features and work flow capabilities that are ideally suited for industrial designers, engineers, marketers, architects and any 3D creative professionals who want to take their images and animations to a whole new level.

With this release, we have merged our previous software Bunkspeed SHOT PRO™ and Bunkspeed Move PRO™, and integrated NVIDIA iray version 2, into a single “PRO Suite” simplifying our offering and providing our professional customers with significant additional value. “Our entire product line is now based on the same core technology, user interface, and the NVIDIA iray® engine, allowing the user to move seamlessly from Bunkspeed SHOT™, to Bunkspeed MOVE™ to the Bunkspeed PRO™ Suite as skills and requirements increase.” says Philip Lunn, Bunkspeed founder and CEO. “Sophisticated yet easy key-frame animation capability is now fully enabled in Bunkspeed PRO™ Suite 2012, allowing the iray® engine to really shine. When rendering animation, you don’t have to think about global illumination quality, the number of ray bounces or amount of photons, etc., you simply get consistent render quality from user to user and frame to frame, never possible before. In addition, we’ve moved our asset library to an online database with individual user credentials, dramatically reducing the download size and allowing our users to get new content as it becomes available. Our customers are finding that a new, more efficient workflow arises from using Bunkspeed PRO. "Bunkspeed PRO™ has enabled me to create visuals with great speed and high quality, replacing my Maya / Mental Ray rendering workflow almost completely..." Richard Thompson, RichRenders.com

Bunkspeed PRO™ Suite 2012 features include all the functionality of Bunkspeed SHOT™ 2012 and Bunkspeed MOVE™ 2012 plus:

Advanced image processing and camera manipulation tools
Single click “render pass” output for post production
All new configuration and model set capability for creation of variants
Photometric lights including spot, point and directional
Bunkspeed QUEUE™ - Simple yet powerful “visual” render queue allowing the user to see jobs in process and render offline
Bunkspeed BOOST™ - Allows a Bunkspeed PRO™ user to connect to another Bunkspeed PRO™ users machine to boost offline render power.

Also available separately with this release:

Bunkspeed POWERBOOST™ - Network rendering server software to increase work-group efficiency for Bunkspeed PRO™ users.

Rendering Services - Bunkspeed offers on-demand cloud-based rendering services using Amazon GPU EC2 allowing Bunkspeed PRO™ Suite customers to access massive compute power by the hour. Please contact info@bunkspeed.com to request more information.

Pricing and Availability:

Bunkspeed PRO Suite 2012 is available immediately from the Bunkspeed Online Store and priced USD $3,495. Free upgrades are available for Bunkspeed SHOT PRO™ and Bunkspeed MOVE PRO™ customers on maintenance contract and Windows 7, 64 Bit.

Stand alone versions for Bunkspeed SHOT™ 2012 and Bunkspeed MOVE™ 2012 are also available immediately from the Bunkspeed Online Store at promotional pricing of $495 and $995 respectively and are available for 64 bit Windows 7.

Dassault Systemes Accelerates Computer-Aided Engineering by Using NVIDIA GPUs

World's Top Design & Manufacturing Companies Cut Engineering Simulation Times in Half Using GPU-Accelerated Abaqus FEA.

Dassault Systèmes today announced that Abaqus 6.11 -- the new release of the leading unified finite element analysis (FEA) product suite from Dassault's SIMULIA brand -- leverages NVIDIA Quadro® and Tesla™ GPUs, coupled with CPUs, to run computer-aided engineering (CAE) simulations twice as fast as with CPUs alone.

Two of the largest automakers in Europe evaluated Abaqus FEA to analyze the structural behavior of large engine models. In each case their NVIDIA GPU-accelerated simulations were completed in half the time it would have taken using CPUs alone. For the automotive industry, this acceleration enables CAE engineers to perform more analyses in a given period of time, identifying issues earlier and decreasing time to market.

"Automotive customers are looking to use GPU-acceleration in Abaqus 6.11 to help them create a better product, with reduced development costs and quicker time to market," said David Watters, senior director, Manufacturing and Design Industry, NVIDIA. "This acceleration will enable them to run more design iterations and find innovative ways to reduce the weight of every component of the vehicle, increasing fuel efficiency, without sacrificing quality or safety."

In addition to the automotive industry, SIMULIA's Abaqus Unified FEA suite is addressing the needs of many other simulation-driven market segments, such as aerospace, energy, electronics, life sciences, industrial equipment and consumer goods.

NVIDIA GPUs are based on the CUDA® parallel processing architecture and can be programmed using industry-standard languages such as C, C++, and Fortran. A broad range of computing applications has been modified to take advantage of GPU acceleration. With power-efficient cores and increasingly fast access to memory, mechanical simulation software from SIMULIA enables design companies and manufacturers to use computer simulations instead of expensive prototyping to design higher quality and more efficient products.

"When addressing the industry's toughest engineering challenges, product quality and time to market are the ultimate measures of success," said Matt Dunbar, chief software architect at SIMULIA. "The acceleration available in the latest version of Abaqus demonstrates how GPUs can be used to dramatically reduce CAE simulation times which will help customers deliver higher quality products and shorten design cycles."

AutoCAD 2011 Designers Achieve Maximum Productivity With NVIDIA Quadro Certified Graphics

Quadro professional graphics solutions enable better designs, more visual accuracy, faster 3D performance, and higher reliability.

SANTA CLARA, Calif — NVIDIA announced today that AutoCAD 2011 designers looking to improve their workflow can now turn to the visual accuracy, fast 3D performance and high reliability of newly certified NVIDIA® Quadro® graphics processing units (GPUs).

As strategic partners, Autodesk and NVIDIA collectively spend more than 2,000 engineering hours annually certifying Quadro GPUs for AutoCAD. In addition, NVIDIA has invested over 10 years in application specific optimizations, resulting in the industry’s best AutoCAD performance.

AutoCAD 2011 brings powerful new features and visual styles to designers working with 2D plans or creating 3D models. These features, combined with a professional-class Quadro GPU, let designers dial up the complexity of their designs, visualize them in software and work out any issues before moving to “sticks and bricks,” thereby increasing productivity and eliminating waste.

“Autodesk certifies and recommends NVIDIA Quadro for use with AutoCAD 2011,” said Guri Stark, Autodesk vice president, AutoCAD and Platform Products. “By upgrading to a Quadro, millions of AutoCAD users worldwide can take full advantage of the application’s newest 3D features, experience superior image quality, and realize true interactive performance.”

Designers running AutoCAD 2011 on Quadro professional GPUs can also realize significant performance increases. AutoCAD benchmarks show Quadro delivering:

* Up to 6x higher performance in ‘3D Hidden’ visual style
* Up to 3x faster interactive manipulation of models in ‘Conceptual’ visual style
* Up to 2x gains in speed with the ‘Realistic’ and new ‘Shades of Gray’ visual styles†

In addition, only Quadro users will be able to experience dramatically higher image quality using the ‘Smooth Lines’ option (enabled by hardware anti-aliasing) in all of the visual styles in AutoCAD 2011. When zooming, panning, and spinning, Quadro GPUs maintain interactivity and deliver a visually accurate model all of the time, while other systems may simplify the model and lose visual fidelity.

“For designers who spend a portion of their day working with AutoCAD, Quadro is a smart, cost-effective investment that increases productivity,” said Jeff Brown, NVIDIA general manager, Professional Solutions Group. “Streamlined workflows can easily save a designer 30 minutes a day, and for a firm with five designers, this translates to a benefit of more than $100,000 over three years.††”

NVIDIA Quadro professional graphics are designed to enhance the complete Autodesk AutoCAD 2011 software portfolio, including: AutoCAD Architecture 2011, AutoCAD Electrical 2011, AutoCAD Mechanical 2011, and AutoCAD MEP 2011. Quadro graphics solutions are engineered, built, and tested by NVIDIA to provide maximum performance and reliability. With an extended 24-36 month product life cycle and three-year warranty, IT managers can standardize on a supported Quadro system for a longer period of time.

NVIDIA Quadro solutions are available from major workstation manufacturers and system integrators, and are featured in the newly introduced, sub-$1000 systems designed for AutoCAD: the Dell Precision T1500, the HP Z200 and the Lenovo ThinkStation E20. Quadro products are also available through reseller partners via PNY Technologies in the Americas and Europe, Leadtek throughout Asia Pacific, and ELSA in Japan.

mental images's 3D visualization technologies to be integrated into RTT’s software for product design and marketing professionals

BERLIN and Munich: Realtime Technology AG (RTT), a leader in realtime 3D visualization software and services for product design and marketing, and mental images, a wholly-owned subsidiary of NVIDIA Corp. and the global leader in rendering and other component and platform software for visualization and 3D cloud computing, today announced a technology licensing agreement. Under the agreement, RTT will integrate mental images’s iray® and neuray® rendering and other RealityServer® platform component technologies such as the DiCE™ middleware into its software products RTT PowerHouse® and RTT DeltaGen®. RTT may also incorporate mental images technologies in other future software products.

RTT’s products and services are used by many of the world’s leading automotive and aerospace companies, and more recently also white goods, apparel and other consumer brands, to instantly produce photorealistic images and interact with 3D models of products at all stages of their lifecycle, while consumers use RTT’s visual product configurators in the buying process.

Users of RTT’s top-of-the-line 3D visualization tools will benefit from significant enhancements of speed, quality and overall workflow resulting in a major increase in productivity. In addition, new web services will become possible that integrate existing workflows with the power of server-based 3D visualization in the Cloud.

RTT plans to announce the availability of the new product versions at its annual worldwide customer conference which will take place on May 6-7, 2010 in Munich, Germany.

“We are pleased that RTT has selected mental images’s rendering and platform component technologies for integration in their leading software products,” says Rolf Herken, CEO and CTO of mental images. “Both mental images and RTT are known for their dedication to the advancement of design visualization and 3D content platform solutions. With the integration of mental images’s component and platform technologies, RTT’s products will feature the most sophisticated rendering technology for the fast and accurate visual representation of physical objects and phenomena using the immense processing power of GPUs. This will significantly improve visual quality and performance, resulting in more fluid workflows and faster turnaround times for users.”

“The integration of iray into our products is a logical continuation of our strategy. mental images’s state-of-the-art approach and the alignment of iray with our strategic hardware and middleware platforms fit perfectly with our high quality and performance standards here at RTT,” says Ludwig A. Fuchs, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of RTT AG. “Whether our clients are designing the aerodynamic body of a high-end sports car or promoting a special-edition jogging shoe, they will have the benefit of better image quality and faster workflows. We look forward to harnessing the power of CUDA GPUs for highest-quality results that will be generated faster than ever before.”

mental images Products

The following mental images products and technologies are accessible to RTT under the agreement:

RealityServer is the scalable software platform that allows companies to easily develop and deploy multi-user collaborative 3D web application services for visualizing even the largest 3D scenes on secure servers and Cloud computing facilities.

neuray is the RealityServer platform component that contains a variety of rendering technologies, including iray.

iray is an intuitive-to-operate, interactive, consistent, high-performance global illumination rendering technology that generates photorealistic imagery by simulating the physical behavior of light. Unlike other ray-tracing renderers, iray does not depend on complex renderer specific shaders and settings to approximate global illumination. iray achieves its high level of performance by taking full advantage of the CUDA™ architecture programming model, allowing interactive previewing on a single NVIDIA GPU, and scaling well on NVIDIA® multi-GPU platforms.

DiCE is a platform and middleware for the development of parallelized high performance computing applications. It helps software developers to develop applications which efficiently scale to thousands of multi-core CPUs and GPUs, both in single computers and across multiple systems.

Lineup of Quadro Professional Graphics Solutions Drives All of the Latest Mobile Workstations from Dell, Fujitsu, HP and Lenovo

SANTA CLARA, Calif — Demonstrating its continued technology leadership and position as the premier graphics solution of choice for design professionals, NVIDIA Corp. announced today the availability of its entire new line of Quadro® professional graphics solutions for mobile workstations.

Based on the NVIDIA® CUDA™ parallel computing architecture, these mobile graphics processing units (GPUs) are available to dramatically and effectively accelerate graphics performance in all of the new generation of Intel Core i7-based mobile workstations from Dell, Fujitsu Technology Solutions, HP, and Lenovo, so professionals don’t have to sacrifice exceptional graphics performance for the flexibility of a mobile platform. From entry-level to high-end, starting with HP’s new, 14.1-inch small form factor, and going up to Dell’s new 17-inch powerhouse, NVIDIA is the only company to have its high-performance mobile graphics solutions included in all of these next-generation mobile workstations.

Certified for the most demanding CAD, DCC and visualization professional applications, the new NVIDIA Quadro FX mobile graphics solution lineup provides a power-efficient, rich experience for manufacturing, design, and video production users on the go and in the field, and is optimized for and supports professional applications using OpenGL, Shader Model, Microsoft DirectX, DirectCompute, and OpenCL standards. The complete line includes:

* Quadro FX 3800M:
Available in the Dell Precision M6500 (17-inch)
* Quadro FX 2800M:
Available in the Dell Precision M6500 (17-inch)
* Quadro FX 1800M:
Available in the HP EliteBook 8540w (15.6-inch)
* Quadro FX 880M:
Available in the HP EliteBook 8540w (15.6-inch), Lenovo ThinkPad W510 (15.6-inch), and Fujitsu CELSIUS H700 (15.6-inch)
* Quadro FX 380M:
Available in the HP EliteBook 8440w (14.1-inch)

All of these new solutions provide large, dedicated graphics frame buffers (up to 1GB), and superb color fidelity with 30-bit color accuracy delivering over 1 billion colors. These features enable precise, sharp images and designs, and support intensive, interactive visualization of complex assemblies or scenes.

NVIDIA CUDA parallel computing architecture, which combines high-performance graphics and high-performance computation, enables breakthrough performance in areas such as video encoding, image processing, and ray tracing.

NVIDIA 3D Vision™ support for professional stereoscopic viewing is also included in the new lineup, addressing the growing development of 3D capable visualization applications from companies such as Autodesk, Siemens and Agilent.

Additionally, with power consumption and efficiency always a critical issue for mobile workstation users, the new Quadro FX mobile lineup offers exceptional power efficiency via NVIDIA PowerMizer® intelligent power management technology, proactively balancing longer battery life without sacrificing graphics performance.

From entry-level to high-end, even more mobile workstations built on these Quadro FX mobile graphics solutions will be announced throughout 2010. Only one solution provides high-performance mobile graphics performance and the best user experience—NVIDIA Quadro FX.

Leading workstation manufacturers rely on NVIDIA Quadro FX mobile solutions

“NVIDIA continues to offer the top-performing mobile graphics solutions our customers demand,” said Greg Weir, senior manager, Dell Precision workstations. “Featuring the Quadro FX 3800M, the Dell Precision M6500 pushes the boundaries of performance as the world’s most powerful mobile workstation.”

“When it comes to raw performance and advanced capabilities, NVIDIA Quadro FX mobile graphics solutions are the preferred graphics engines, requested by manufacturing and design companies worldwide,” said Wilhelm Geyer, director of workstations, Fujitsu Technology Solutions. “The Quadro FX 880M, together with the Fujitsu CELSIUS H700 mobile workstation, delivers uncompromising, power-efficient performance in professional environments, without tethering you to the office.”

“By incorporating the latest visual performance features such as NVIDIA Quadro FX mobile graphics, our new ThinkPad W510 is helping mobile workstation professionals create and render heavy graphics-intensive applications without sacrificing mobility,” said Tom Butler, director, worldwide ThinkPad marketing, Lenovo. “We’ve ensured that the new ThinkPad W510 mobile workstation also works seamlessly with leading graphics software programs as well as the newest breed of GPU-accelerated applications.”

The complete line of new NVIDIA Quadro FX mobile professional graphics solutions is available worldwide through leading mobile workstation manufacturers.

Agilent Technologies announces stereo 3D viewer capability with NVIDIA 3D Vision Technology

Solution Allows Designers to see Currents and EM Fields in Three Dimensions.

SANTA CLARA, Calif - Agilent Technologies Inc today announced a stereo 3D viewer capability for the Momentum G2 Element and FEM Element electromagnetic (EM) simulators in its Advanced Design System (ADS) EDA platform. The new stereo 3D viewer leverages NVIDIA Quadro graphics processing units (GPUs) and NVIDIA’s unique 3D Vision quad buffered stereo technology, originally designed for immersive mechanical design, digital content creation and video games, to render electric and magnetic fields and currents for scientists and engineers in crisp, vivid, high-resolution 3D.

Ever since Michael Faraday and James Clerk Maxwell developed the idea of electric and magnetic fields, there have been attempts to visualize these illusive 3D constructs. Unfortunately, these attempts were constrained by the limitations of 2D paper and later, 2D computer displays. Maxwell’s own “A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism” (1873) is a prime example attempting to illustrate 3D fields using perspective drawings. Overcoming these constraints, Agilent’s stereo viewer succeeds in allowing users to actually see fields and currents in 3D.

The stereo 3D viewer consists of a support download that enhances ADS 2009 Update 1. It requires a computer equipped with an NVIDIA Quadro FX 3800 or higher professional graphics solution, NVIDIA 3D Vision stereoscopic glasses, and a 3D Vision ready 120-Hz display.

“Agilent’s stereo 3D viewer capability is cutting-edge technology that design, signal integrity, EMI, and layout engineers can use to review the layout and fix problems ahead of tape out,” said Jeff Brown, general manager of the Professional Solutions Group at NVIDIA. “Engineers can see time and cost savings benefits from this solution by identifying and solving critical issues in today’s multi gigabit-per-second board and package designs.”

“You really have to see this new stereo viewer capability to believe it,” says Colin Warwick, signal integrity product manager in Agilent’s EEsof EDA organization. “Once you do, its benefits are obvious. Our tools are for engineering a 3D structure, so showing its fields and currents in 3D gives our customers insights that previously weren’t possible.”

The stereo 3D viewer is the result of a close collaboration between Agilent and NVIDIA aimed at creating a complete solution to help EDA tools run better, and improved EDA tools to help engineers design more innovative hardware. Other ongoing projects include massively parallel EM, and circuit simulation that harness the massively parallel CUDA architecture of NVIDIA Tesla GPU computing solutions.

Quad buffered stereo is enabled with 3D stereoscopic glasses and displays, driven by NVIDIA Quadro FX high-end and ultra-high end solutions. For more information on supported glasses and displays, including NVIDIA 3D Vision, please visit http://www.nvidia.com/object/quadro_pro_graphics_boards.html.

About Advanced Design System

Advanced Design System is an industry-leading high-frequency, high-speed electronic design automation software platform. Recent releases of the software include new signal integrity capabilities to form the most complete signal integrity design flow for chip-to-chip links. Additional information is available at www.agilent.com/find/signal-integrity-analysis.

U.S. Pricing and Availability

Agilent’s stereo viewer software is now available as a no-charge download for customers with existing Agilent ADS 2009 Update 1 support contracts. This feature is included in ADS signal integrity bundles with prices starting at approximately $56,000. It is also available in time-based bundles, starting at approximately $21,000 per year.

NVIDIA Corp launches Quadro Graphics Solutions For Autodesk Applications

Quadro Professional Graphics Solutions for Desktop and Mobile Workstations Introduced at Autodesk University in Las Vegas.

Autodesk University 2009 (Booth #319), LAS VEGAS— NVIDIA Corp. today launched new Quadro® professional graphics solutions for desktop and mobile workstations, designed to boost productivity and enhance creativity of 3D design professionals running Autodesk applications.

“Leveraging the massively parallel CUDA computing architecture, the new NVIDIA Quadro® FX 3800M and Quadro® FX 2800M graphics solutions transform the Dell Precision M6500 into a high performance mobile workstation that’s ideal for the most demanding 3D design professional,” said Shawn Worsell, product manager, NVIDIA Professional Solutions Group.

“The new NVIDIA Quadro® FX 380 LP is the most affordable 512MB professional graphics solution on the market. Despite its small size and ultra-low power consumption, it delivers best-in-class performance and over twice the speed of consumer cards when running professional applications,” said Jeff Brown, general manager, NVIDIA Professional Solutions Group.

“NVIDIA Quadro professional graphics cards—that’s what you want, and that’s what you need if you want to see AutoCAD running properly,” said Lynne Allen, Autodesk Evangelist

Optimized and certified for AutoCAD, 3ds Max and other Autodesk software, the new offerings include:

* NVIDIA® Quadro® FX 380 LP low profile entry-level graphics solution
o The most affordable and flexible Quadro professional graphics solution, with an MSRP of $169 (USD), is perfect for design professionals moving from 2D to 3D
o Best-in-class performance increases productivity with up to a 10X acceleration in AutoCAD 2009 versus consumer graphics cards1
o 512 MB of graphics memory enables designers, animators, architects and engineers to create and interact with more complex models and scenes while increasing visual quality
o Low profile design easily fits into small form factor desktop systems
o EnergyStar compliant, ultra-low 28W maximum power consumption
o Meets stringent performance and reliability requirements for business critical applications

* NVIDIA Quadro® FX 3800M and Quadro® FX 2800M mobile workstation solutions
o Ideal for demanding design professionals on the go
o Delivers the highest level of graphics performance in the new Dell Precision M6500 17-inch mobile workstation
o Features up to 128 CUDA™ cores for massively parallel computational graphics
o Delivers 30-bit color accuracy for display of over one billion colors
o 1 GB dedicated graphics memory enables efficient manipulation of larger data sets in graphics-intensive 3D applications, such as Autodesk Revit Architecture, Inventor and Moldflow
o Combines high-performance graphics with high-performance computation to enable real-time ray tracing, interactive volume rendering, and the fastest video encoding available in a mobile workstation
o PowerMizer® 9.0 intelligent power management technology for extended battery life while maintaining optimal performance

At the NVIDIA booth, as well as the HP and Dell booths, Autodesk University attendees can experience the range of Quadro solutions built for professionals to do their jobs more efficiently, with greater precision, and with higher levels of creativity.

Additional demonstrations include:

* The NVIDIA® RealityServer® platform, featuring mental images® iray® technology for groundbreaking, 3D cloud computing that enables the streaming of interactive, photorealistic 3D applications to any web connected PC, laptop, netbook or smart phone
* NVIDIA Quadro Plex scalable visualization solutions, featuring NVIDIA 3D Vision™ technology to create immersive and collaborative design review environments;
* Cutting-edge digital prototyping with NVIDIA CUDA-based Autodesk Moldflow software;
* NVIDIA “Built for AutoCAD Professionals” Dell Precision T1500 desktop workstation demonstration, featuring the NVIDIA Quadro FX 580 professional graphics solution

NVIDIA and mental images unveil NVIDIA® RealityServer® platform for cloud computing

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif— NVIDIA and mental images introduced today the NVIDIA® RealityServer® platform for cloud computing, a powerful combination of GPUs and software that streams interactive, photorealistic 3D applications to any web connected PC, laptop, netbook and smart phone.

NVIDIA RealityServer – the culmination of nearly 40 collective years of hardware and software engineering by NVIDIA and mental images – enables developers to create a new generation of consumer and enterprise 3D web applications, all with remarkable levels of photorealism.

* Automobile product engineering teams will be able to securely share and visualize complex 3D models of cars under different lighting and environmental conditions.
* Architects and their clients will be able to review sophisticated architectural models, rendered in different settings, including day or night.
* Online shoppers will be able to interactively design home interiors, rearrange furniture, and view how fabrics will drape, all with perfectly accurate lighting.

The NVIDIA RealityServer platform is comprised of an NVIDIA® Tesla™ RS GPU-based server running RealityServer software from mental images. While photorealistic imagery has traditionally taken hours or days to create, this first-of-its-kind, integrated solution streams images of photorealistic scenes at rates approaching an interactive gaming experience.

"This is one giant leap closer to the goal of real-time photorealistic visual computing for the masses," said Dan Vivoli, senior vice president, NVIDIA. "mental images fully embraced the concept of GPU co-processing to enable Interactive photorealism anywhere, any time – something that was science fiction just yesterday."

RealityServer software utilizes mental images iray® technology, the world’s first physically correct ray-tracing renderer that employs the massively parallel CUDA™ architecture of NVIDIA GPUs to create stunningly accurate photorealistic images by simulating the physics of light in its interaction with matter. Because ray tracing is one of the most demanding computational problems, iray technology is designed to take advantage of the parallel computing power of NVIDIA Tesla.

"Everyone should experience the web the way they experience the world, in 3D," said Rolf Herken, CEO and CTO of mental images. "RealityServer offers extraordinary opportunities and far-reaching implications for businesses and consumers, enabling us to interact with 3D content in the form and manner that our brains expect."

Customer Quotes

"NVIDIA RealityServer can revolutionize marketing and sales via the web by enabling the world to interact with virtual products in a more realistic and unconstrained way," said David Kelly, CEO of mydeco.com, a U.K.-based designer furnishing site. "Our interactive 3D planner, which uses RealityServer, is what attracts customers to mydeco, and the immersive, real-life experience it delivers keeps them engaged."

"Some of the biggest problems we face in aviation research involve managing and visualizing massive datasets while keeping that data secure," said Fernando Toledo, Manager, Virtual Reality Center, National Institute for Aviation Research at Wichita State University. "Using NVIDIA RealityServer for virtual prototyping, design reviews and remote visualization solves those issues. We are extremely impressed by its performance and ability to realistically render our large 3D CAD models over the web without exposing our IP."

"NVIDIA RealityServer is an integral part of our 3D Scenes application on Facebook," said Mark Zohar, CEO, SceneCaster. "This unique and powerful GPU-based Cloud computing solution offers exciting opportunities for the delivery of realistic 3D applications and services."

Product Information

The NVIDIA RealityServer platform will be available November 30, 2009. Tesla RS configurations start at eight GPUs, and scale to support increasing numbers of simultaneous users.

A developer edition of RealityServer 3.0 software will be downloadable free of charge, including the right to deploy non-commercial applications November 30, 2009.

MSC.Software announces alliance with NVIDIA to leverage architecture of Tesla GPUs

SANTA CLARA, Calif: MSC.Software today announced an alliance with NVIDIA to leverage the CUDA(TM) architecture of its Tesla(TM) graphics processing units (GPUs) in a way that will transform simulation-driven product design and development, providing computer-aided engineering (CAE) analysts with dramatically faster results.

MSC.Software's finite element analysis (FEA) software, known as Marc, has demonstrated performance gains, with Tesla GPUs, of up to 5x for typical complex models compared with the latest dual-core CPUs.

"Our customers will achieve new levels of simulation fidelity and product innovation using this breakthrough technology," said Ash Munshi, CEO of MSC.Software. "This successful collaboration with NVIDIA is the beginning of an alliance that will ultimately add value across a broad range of simulation products from MSC.Software."

In addition to dramatic speed ups, NVIDIA® GPUs offer significantly greater compute density, so that typical simulation times require just a few GPUs as opposed to tens of CPUs. This advantage provides significant cost advantages in hardware savings, but also substantial reductions in power consumption and space requirements.

"Whether an organization is designing an aircraft or power tool, simulation is the bottle neck in the design and development process, taking days or even weeks to complete," said Monica Schnitger, president of CAE market analyst Schnitger Corp. "Manufacturers are increasingly turning to GPUs to speed their processes, turning week-long computations into days and days into hours."

NVIDIA Launches the World's First Interactive Ray Tracing Engine

NVIDIA Launches the World's First Interactive Ray Tracing Engine.

NEW ORLEANS - NVIDIA, the leader in GPU computing, today introduced the NVIDIA((R)) OptiX(TM) ray tracing engine, part of a suite of application acceleration engines for software developers. NVIDIA acceleration engines make it easy to incorporate valuable, high-performance capabilities into applications, while simultaneously reducing development time.

NVIDIA application acceleration engines unveiled at SIGGRAPH 2009 include:

* NVIDIA((R)) OptiX(TM) engine for real-time ray tracing
* NVIDIA((R)) SceniX(TM) engine for managing 3D data and scenes
* NVIDIA((R)) CompleX(TM) engine for scaling performance across multiple GPUs
* NVIDIA((R)) PhysX((R)) 64-bit engine for real-time, hyper-realistic physical and environmental effects

As the world's first interactive ray tracing engine to leverage the GPU, the NVIDIA OptiX engine is a programmable ray tracing pipeline enabling software developers to easily bring new levels of realism to their applications using traditional C programming. By tapping into the massively parallel computing power of NVIDIA(R) Quadro(R) processors, the OptiX engine greatly accelerates the ray tracing used across a spectrum of disciplines, including: photorealistic rendering, automotive styling, acoustical design, optics simulation, volume calculations and radiation research. Application developers are utilizing the OptiX engine to redefine what's possible for designers, engineers and researchers.

"In one year, NVIDIA has gone from proving interactive GPU ray tracing is possible, to making it available to all," said Jon Peddie, founder and president of Jon Peddie Research. "Intricate design tasks, such as examining the play of reflection and refraction across surfaces and within glass, can now be examined in real-time by utilizing the OptiX acceleration engine running on Quadro processors. This is a phenomenal milestone for developers and designers alike."

"Thousands of applications are being created today that harness the phenomenal power of GPUs, a clear sign that GPU computing has reached a tipping point. The world of computing is shifting from host-bound processing on CPUs to balanced co-processing on GPUs and CPUs," said Jeff Brown, general manager, Professional Solutions, NVIDIA. "NVIDIA application acceleration engines arm developers with the tools they need to further revolutionize both real-time graphics and advanced data analysis."

The NVIDIA SceniX scene management engine provides the interactive core for demanding real-time, professional 3D graphics applications. Whether used in leading products such as RTT DeltaGen, Autodesk Showcase and Anark Media Studio, or in scores of in-house tools used for advanced visualization, simulation, broadcast graphics, medical imagery, and energy exploration, developers look to the SceniX engine for the interactive framework to manage 3D data and convey results in real-time at high fidelity.

The NVIDIA CompleX scene scaling engine enables applications to maintain interactivity when working with extremely large and complex models. By automatically utilizing the combined memory and processing power of multiple GPUs within Quadro Plex visual computing systems, applications that utilize the CompleX engine enable users to explore and visualize all their data in full context, instead of piecemeal.

The NVIDIA PhysX 64-bit physics engine brings hyper-realistic, real-time physics to professional applications. Already a proven and popular solution within the computer games industry, the 64-bit version of PhysX will permit more accurate calculations on far larger data sets for engineers, designers and animators wanting to interrogate their data, model physical properties and breathe life into their work.

"The SceniX acceleration engine has been a critical part of our success in the automotive styling industry," said Christian Matzen, COO, ICIDO, a global leader in virtual engineering solutions. "Based on the ease of integrating OptiX within SceniX, and its stunning visual results, we plan on delivering interactive ray tracing to our design customers later this year."

"The CompleX engine is essential for our application to accommodate the massive data sets of customers like StatoilHydro," said Thorolf Horn Tonjum, Director of R&D Stormfjord, a Norwegian development company serving the visualization needs of the energy industry. "By using the SceniX engine to power our scene graph, we easily incorporated the CompleX engine to keep navigation smooth for 10 GB scenes, and the PhysX 64-bit engine to study the challenges off shore oil rigs must face. These engines from NVIDIA accelerate not only our product, but also our time to market."

NVIDIA will be showcasing the new suite of application acceleration engines this week at the SIGGRAPH 2009 conference and exhibition in New Orleans; booth #2101.

Pricing and Availability

NVIDIA application acceleration engines are available from the NVIDIA Developer Zone at no charge. The SceniX and CompleX engines can be downloaded at http://developer.nvidia.com/page/home.html. The OptiX and PhysX 64-bit engines will be available in fall of 2009.

NVIDIA(R) Quadro(R) by PNY Graphics Solutions Optimize CAD, DCC and Visualization Performance at SIGGRAPH 2009

At SIGGRAPH 2009 (Booth # 2017) PNY and its key strategic partners will demonstrate industry-leading solutions for large-scale visualization, film and video, and digital content creation. Attendees will see how the NVIDIA Quadro FX by PNY graphics boards optimize professional 3D applications, streamlining 3D workflows and allowing users to give full rein to their creativity. Quadro HD-SDI graphics boards will demonstrate why they are chosen for the creation of high profile projects such as the latest feature films X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D and My Bloody Valentine 3D.

PNY will spotlight many new and exciting visualization products at its booth. Attendees will see impressive 4k images spanned across four displays in immersive stereoscopic 3D, using NVIDIA SLI(R) Mosiac Mode technology, the Quadro Plex 2200 D2 and NVIDIA 3D Vision(TM) glasses. Also highlighted is the latest NVIDIA Quadro FX professional graphics solution for Mac Pro users, the new NVIDIA Quadro FX 4800 for Mac(R). Adobe(R) Creative Suite(R) 4 users are invited to witness how the new CUDA-based video processing plug-in, Elemental Accelerator(TM) , can dramatically accelerate decoding, processing and encoding.

"We're excited to demonstrate with our key partners industry-proven visualization solutions that provide advancements for our 3D professional clients to free up their creative process, make their workflows more efficient and help them stay ahead of their competition," said Jeff Medeiros, director of marketing, PNY Technologies.

"The NVIDIA Quadro FX 5800 SDI by PNY is our gold standard at this point for SCRATCH(R). It provides the necessary graphics performance for real-time DI and the HD-SDI output that gives SCRATCH users unprecedented capabilities," says Jeff Edson, CEO of ASSIMILATE.

Featured PNY Quadro Products:

* NVIDIA Quadro FX 4800 for Mac - specifically designed for Apple(R) Mac Pro users offering: 1.5 GB of memory, support for two 30" Apple Cinema displays, standard 3-pin stereo connector and support for Apple Boot camp.
* NVIDIA Quadro FX 3800 by PNY - with 1GB Memory, this high-end graphics board is ideal for demanding CAD/CAM, 3D design and DCC applications.
* NVIDIA Quadro FX 5800 SDI by PNY - this integrated graphics-to-video solution, designed for broadcast, film, and video professionals delivers high performance graphics to uncompressed 12-bit SDI in 2K, HD, or SD formats.
* NVIDIA Quadro Plex 2200 D2 - a multi GPU system giving geophysicists, scientists, engineers, and other technical professionals visual supercomputing power at their desktops.

NVIDIA Quadro Processors Propel 3D Design To New Heights For Autocad 2010 Users

NVIDIA Corporation today announced that the NVIDIA® Quadro® line of professional solutions is now optimized for Autodesk AutoCAD 2010. Coupling industry-leading graphics capabilities with specially built AutoCAD performance drivers, Quadro processors enable design professionals to create and interact with more complex 3D product designs. Starting at under $100, NVIDIA Quadro solutions offer AutoCAD users maximum productivity at every price point.

“By leveraging the advanced features and massively parallel processing capabilities of NVIDIA Quadro professional-class GPUs, it’s possible for our customers to experience a significant performance boost,” said Eric Stover, AutoCAD product line manager, Autodesk. “AutoCAD 2010 has been enhanced with 3D modeling features and functionality, and the unprecedented 3D visual quality that results from using Quadro GPUs will give designers of all types a strong professional advantage.”

“There is no question that the ability to work efficiently in 3D is a must for today’s design professional,” said Jeff Brown, general manager, Professional Solutions, NVIDIA. “NVIDIA’s long history of 3D innovation makes Quadro processor-based workstations and mobile workstations an essential tool for designers who want to utilize the breakthrough 3D capabilities of AutoCAD 2010.”

In addition to maximizing productivity, the benefits of combining Quadro solutions with AutoCAD 2010 include:

* Best in Class Quality – Quadro processors offer the best price performance for workstation graphics with the optimal blend of quality, precision and performance. Quadro solutions are engineered, built and tested by NVIDIA to achieve premium quality standards.

* Unprecedented Performance – Quadro processors enable up to a 5X performance increase in ‘3D Hidden’ visual style and faster interactive manipulation of models in ‘Conceptual’ and ‘Realistic’ visual styles.

* Easy Interaction with 3D Models – Quadro processors offer the ability to easily manipulate and interact with large scale models while working at the maximum visual quality that is necessary to render high-polygon 3D models precisely.

* Superior Image Quality – Quadro processors offer higher image quality without sacrificing performance with AutoCAD smooth lines display, a Quadro-specific feature available through NVIDIA’s AutoCAD performance driver.

* Advanced Multi-Display Support – NVIDIA nView® advanced display software delivers maximum flexibility for single-large display or multi-display options at resolutions up to 2560 x 1600 per display.

Availability
NVIDIA’s new performance drivers for AutoCAD 2010 are free and available for download from NVIDIA’s Web site. The drivers are available as either a standalone package or integrated in the latest graphics driver available from NVIDIA.

NVIDIA Quadro professional solutions are available through system manufacturers such as Dell, Fujistu Technology Solutions, HP and Lenovo; leading workstation system integrators; and NVIDIA channel partners PNY Technologies (US and EMEA), Leadtek (APAC) and Elsa (Japan). NVIDIA Quadro solutions range from USD $100 (for entry-level) to USD $3,000 (ultra high-end).

Autodesk Leverages NVIDIA GPU Computing to Bolster Moldflow Software Performance

CHICAGO - Autodesk, Inc. (NASDAQ: ADSK) today announced that it has significantly increased the performance of the latest release of Autodesk Moldflow Insight 2010, part of its software suite for plastics injection molding, by further leveraging cutting-edge GPU technology from NVIDIA Corporation.

Part of the Autodesk solution for Digital Prototyping, Autodesk Moldflow software simulates the injection molding process to predict the flow behavior of plastic, allowing customers to help simulate and optimize their plastic parts and associated molds and achieve higher-quality and more profitable manufacturing. Moldflow 2010 is the first plastic injection molding software in the computer aided engineering (CAE) market to leverage the revolutionary NVIDIA CUDA parallel processing architecture of the NVIDIA Quadro FX 4800 and Quadro FX 5800 GPUs, which has resulted in a more than 2X performance increase.

"Autodesk is absolutely driven to improve the performance of our Moldflow product line, and unlocking the power of NVIDIA Quadro GPUs provided a great opportunity to do so when we developed Moldflow 2010," said Samir Hanna, vice president of Digital Factory and Industrial Design for the Autodesk Manufacturing Industry Group. "Only a few years ago, analyzing plastics injection molding in true 3D was a slow process, but now Autodesk Moldflow users can reap the benefits of these new speed gains and reduce analysis times by multiple factors."

The CUDA architecture enables the distribution of a computational workload across the GPU's many hundreds of processor cores, resulting in the capability to deliver an unprecedented level of graphics realism at ever increasing speeds. This increase is an important step in the Digital Prototyping process as it allows CAE analysts and engineers to create and analyze more design variations in less time, reducing the time to the final digital representation and improving plastic part designs.

"We are pleased to have worked so closely with Autodesk to deliver a truly unique solution for the design of plastic parts and molds," said Jeff Brown, general manager, Professional Solutions, NVIDIA. "By taking full advantage of CUDA and NVIDIA GPUs, plastics specialists and analysts are now able to benefit from added graphics capabilities and experience process simulations at higher rates than ever before."

Autodesk will be showcasing Autodesk Moldflow 2010 at the International Plastics Showcase taking place June 22-26, in Chicago.

CyberPower's New Power Mega 1000 Graphics Workstation Features NVIDIA Quadro NVS420 Quad-Display Graphics Solution

BALDWIN PARK, CA - CyberPower Inc., a manufacturer of custom gaming machines, notebook systems, and high performance workstations, today announced its Power Mega 1000 - an Intel Core-i7-based desktop workstation, which features PNY NVIDIA's Quadro NVS-420 graphics solution.

CyberPower teamed with NVIDIA to deliver an advanced system that meets the needs of today's most demanding graphics environments. The NVIDIA Quadro NVS 420 by PNY Technologies for x16 PCIE is a quad-display business graphics solution, designed specifically for small form factor systems. It is the first low-profile graphics card to support up to four 30-inch displays 30-in. panels at 2,560 x 1,600 resolution via DisplayPort / dual-link DVI. The Quadro NVS 420 includes advanced display software technology, which enables features such as profiles, extended Windows taskbar, gridlines, and virtual desktops. It also features 512MB of memory, 11.2GB/sec (per GPU) of memory bandwidth and a CUDA Parallel Computing Processor.

The Power Mega 1000 offers stability, ease-of-use and has been tested for wide compatibility with the leading business, graphics and CAD applications. This advanced performance workstation is perfect 2D and 3D professional applications, professional and home animation, matte painting, compositing, CAD/CAM, and modeling, and graphics rendering.

The Power Mega 1000 is based on Intel's Core i7-920 2.66 GHz 8M L3 Cache LGA1366 CPU mounted to an Asus P6T Intel X58 Chipset SLI/CrossFireX mainboard, which features triple-channel DDR3/1600, SATA RAID w/ eSATA, on-board Gigabit LAN, USB2.0, IEEE1394a, and Hi-Def on-board 7.1 Audio. Asetek's liquid CPU cooling system (Extreme Cooling Performance + Extreme Silent at 20dBA) keeps the components cool, and NZXT's Whisper series case dampens the noise.

Other standard features include 6GB (2GBx3) PC1333 DDR3 PC3 10666 triple channel memory (Corsair or major brand); 1-terabyte SATA-II hard drive at 3.0Gb/s with 16MB Cache; a Lite-On DH-401S 4X Blu-Ray player; LG 22X DVD±R/±RW + CD-R/RW dual layer drive; Logitech Deluxe 250 USB keyboard and Xtremegear Optical USB 3-button mouse. Microsoft Windows XP Professional w/ Service Pack 3 is pre-loaded

The Power Mega 1000 has a MSRP of $1469. It can be customized with numerous component options including a wide range of displays to complete the system. All CyberPower computer systems come with a 3-year warranty and toll-free life-time technical support.

NVIDIA Names Harvard University A CUDA Center Of Excellence

Harvard Recognized as a CUDA Center of Excellence for Its Pioneering Work Using GPU Computing

SANTA CLARA, CA : NVIDIA Corporation, inventor of the GPU, today announced that Harvard University has been recognized as a CUDA Center of Excellence for its commitment to teaching GPU Computing and its integration of CUDA™-enabled GPUs for a host of science and engineering research projects. The honor complements a prior $2M grant the University received from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for the development of GPU-enabled computational science.

CUDA is NVIDIA’s computing architecture that enables its GPUs to be programmed using industry standard programming languages, opening up their massive parallel processing power to a broad range of applications beyond graphics.

“With interest in the CUDA architecture spreading rapidly across the Harvard campus and the lively scientific landscape in Boston, there has never been a better time to announce this partnership,” said Hanspeter Pfister, Gordon McKay Professor of the Practice of Computer Science in Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and Director of Visual Computing at the Harvard Initiative in Innovative Computing. “This generous gift from NVIDIA will provide excellent learning opportunities for Harvard students, accelerate our research and expand the use of GPUs for computing in science and other advanced applications.”

Pfister, who is teaching a new course related to heterogeneous computing, added, “My course is designed to respond to the growing interest in GPU programming in the world of science. We look forward to taking advantage of the new teaching cluster and CUDA environment - these new assets will provide exciting opportunities for our students and the surrounding technical community.”

Harvard is already using GPUs to carry out research across fundamentally important areas such as decoding the intricate structure of the human brain (Connectome project), discovering the origins of the universe (MWA telescope project) and studying the quantum chemistry of molecules (Qchem project).

“Naming Harvard as a CUDA Center of Excellence is a formal recognition of the strong academic collaboration between the University and NVIDIA,” said Bill Dally, chief scientist at NVIDIA. “Harvard will include the CUDA architecture in its curricular offerings. Researchers will use CUDA in projects at Harvard and in collaborative ventures with faculty at Boston University, to bring GPU computing to scientists and engineers throughout the Boston academic epicenter.”

Boston University, where physicists are using GPU computing to probe the subatomic structure of matter, is recognized as a Founding Partner in the CUDA Center of Excellence.

NVIDIA Transforms High-End Visualization With New Quadro FX 4800 Graphics Card

Today, mechanical computer-aided design (MCAD), digital content creation (DCC) and broadcast applications received a major performance boost with the introduction of the NVIDIA® Quadro® FX 4800 ultra-high-end professional graphics card. With advances in GPU architecture, added graphics memory and 30-bit color, the Quadro FX 4800 gives professionals the right toolset to dramatically push the boundaries of realism, performance and quality.

“In this increasingly competitive landscape, it’s imperative that professionals deliver better, faster and more cost-effective results,” said Jeff Brown general manager, Professional Solutions, NVIDIA. “NVIDIA is not only addressing this challenge, but is raising the ultra-high-end visualization bar by creating specialized solutions to meet the direct needs of professionals – whether it be a geophysicists or MCAD designer.”

Equipped with 192 CUDA™ parallel computing cores, the Quadro FX 4800 delivers a 2X performance increase over previous generations of ultra-high-end graphics cards. Key features in the Quadro FX 4800 include:
• Real-time Visualization of Large Data Sets – Equipped with 1.5 GB graphics memory, the Quadro FX 4800 has the capacity to process large textures and frames in real time while providing fill rates of 38 billion texels per second and geometry performance of 300 million triangles per second.
• Increased Image Quality - A 128-bit precision graphic pipeline and 32x FSAA for better image clarity and quality.
• Ultra-high Color Fidelity and Resolutions – Dual 10-bit display ports delivering a color palette of over a billion colors, orders of magnitude greater than previous generations of graphics cards. Also included is a single dual-link digital display connector for ultra-high resolution panels of up to 3840 x 2400 at 24Hz.
• High-performance Visualization - A CUDA parallel computing processor architecture exposed through a C language environment and tool suite. In combination with high-performance visualization, CUDA unleashes new capabilities to solve highly complex challenges such as real-time ray tracing, video encoding and interactive volume rendering.

Pricing and Availability
NVIDIA Quadro solutions are widely available through leading system manufacturers and workstation integrators, and NVIDIA channel partners PNY Technologies (US and EMEA), Leadteck (APAC), and Elsa (Japan). The NVIDIA Quadro FX 4800 is available today and has a MSRP of $1,999 USD. For more information on NVIDIA professional technologies and products, please visit: www.nvidia.com/quadro.

HP, Autodesk and NVIDIA Join to Spur 3-D Adoption

HP, Autodesk and NVIDIA today announced they are collaborating to offer computer-aided design (CAD) professionals the compute power they need to migrate from 2-D to 3-D design.

Autodesk is a leader in design innovation technology. NVIDIA is a leader in graphics processing. Together with HP, the three companies are offering a bundle of their most advanced graphics tools, which are designed to handle the extreme demands of 3-D AutoCAD.

The technology package options include an HP xw4600 Workstation, a NVIDIA® Quadro® graphics card and a license of AutoCAD 2009 software, offering powerful all-in-one hardware, graphics and software solutions that start at the list price of a license of AutoCAD 2009 software alone – a savings of up to $1,236.

“HP provides our customers with the best solutions available to meet the increasing demands of 3-D CAD applications,” said Tom Salomone, engineering segment manager, Workstations, HP. “AutoCAD users count on HP to offer the most reliable platform to support their design challenges and need for increased performance.”

The technology bundles are available at www.hp.com/go/cad until Dec. 31 for a starting U.S. list price of $3,995.(1) The bundles provide users with:

* AutoCAD 2009 software – the latest version of the world’s leading 2-D and 3-D CAD application for the manufacturing, building and construction, and media and entertainment markets.
* An HP xw4600 Workstation with Intel® CoreTM 2 Duo E7200 processor, offering next-generation performance technologies in a powerful, flexible and reliable workstation.
* NVIDIA Quadro FX 370 entry-level, Quadro FX 570 mid-range or Quadro FX 1700 mid-range professional solutions, which take the leading CAD applications to a new level of interactivity by enabling unprecedented capabilities in performance, programmability and precision.

“Today’s AutoCAD users demand more functionality and reliability from their desktop computing solutions,” said Jeff Brown, general manager, Professional Solutions, NVIDIA. “Tested and certified with Autodesk’s AutoCAD software and HP workstations, the Quadro product line is designed to maximize productivity and deliver the cost-effective, professional-quality graphics solution professional users require.”

Companies use HP workstations to design everything from running shoes to race cars, animated characters to deep-sea submersibles, and to manage everything from billions of dollars of tradable securities to mission-critical IT environments.

AutoCAD 2009 is tested and certified on HP workstations and with NVIDIA Quadro graphics cards. All HP workstations include Performance Tuning Framework for AutoCAD, which provides users a quick and easy way to configure and update their workstations and improve the stability and performance of their systems while increasing productivity.

“Users taking advantage of the 3-D capabilities in AutoCAD 2009 are likely to achieve significant productivity improvements,” said Guri Stark, vice president, AutoCAD and Platform Products, Autodesk. “The NVIDIA Quadro graphics card and HP workstations provide the intense graphics and computing power designers need to fully leverage the cutting-edge features in AutoCAD, the most widely used application for 2-D and 3-D design and documentation in the world.”

Demonstrating HP’s environmental leadership, the HP xw4600 is registered as an Electronic Products Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT™) Gold product, the highest rating available. All HP workstations are more than 90 percent recyclable by weight and incorporate a tool-less chassis design for quick and easy upgrades by hand. Each workstation includes an 80 PLUS power supply, which is substantially more efficient than a standard power supply, reducing both overall energy usage and the amount of waste heat released into the environment.

NVIDIA Quadro professional solutions deliver the fastest application performance and the highest-quality workstation graphics, and they are certified on all industry-leading professional applications, taking them to new levels of interactivity. AutoCAD now enables users to leverage the capabilities of NVIDIA Quadro professional-class graphics processing units (GPU) to fully incorporate high-quality 3-D models into their work flow.

The collaboration between NVIDIA, Autodesk and HP delivers a certified hardware-software solution that enables users to create and interact with complex product designs without sacrificing visual quality. More information about these offerings is available at www.nvidia.com/builtforpros.

About HP
HP, the world’s largest technology company, provides printing and personal computing products and IT services, software and solutions that simplify the technology experience for consumers and businesses. HP completed its acquisition of EDS on Aug. 26, 2008. More information about HP (NYSE: HPQ) is available at http://www.hp.com/.

About NVIDIA
NVIDIA (Nasdaq: NVDA) is the world leader in visual computing technologies and the inventor of the GPU, a high-performance processor which generates breathtaking, interactive graphics on workstations, personal computers, game consoles, and mobile devices. NVIDIA serves the entertainment and consumer market with its GeForce graphics products, the professional design and visualization market with its Quadro® graphics products, and the high-performance computing market with its Tesla™ computing solutions products. NVIDIA is headquartered in Santa Clara, Calif. and has offices throughout Asia, Europe, and the Americas. For more information, visit www.nvidia.com.

About Autodesk
Autodesk, Inc. is the world leader in 2D and 3D design software for the manufacturing, building and construction, and media and entertainment markets. Since its introduction of AutoCAD software in 1982, Autodesk has developed the broadest portfolio of state-of-the-art digital prototyping solutions to help customers experience their ideas before they are real. Fortune 1000 companies rely on Autodesk for the tools to visualize, simulate and analyze real-world performance early in the design process to save time and money, enhance quality and foster innovation. For additional information about Autodesk, visit http://www.autodesk.com.

NVIDIA Redefines Entry-level Professional Graphics for Small and Integrated Form Factors

With today’s traditional workstation model pricing, many organizations can only afford to deploy professional graphics solutions to select designers and engineers, leaving a significant portion of the workforce with sub-optimal products. This is about to change as NVIDIA Corp. announced today NVIDIA® Quadro® FX 470, the first integrated professional motherboard GPU, and NVIDIA Quadro FX 370 Low Profile (Quadro FX 370 LP), an entry-level Quadro graphics boards for small form factor systems.

Honoring NVIDIA’s commitment to tailor its Quadro professional line to the specific needs of the end user, the Quadro FX 470 and Quadro FX 370 LP GPU deliver high performance and flexibility at entry-level pricing for computer-aided design (CAD) and digital content creation (DCC) applications.

“In today’s competitive global marketplace, engineers, traders, designers and power office users demand more functionality and reliability from their desktop computing solutions,” said Jeff Brown, general manager, Professional Services, NVIDIA. “The Quadro FX 470 and the Quadro FX 370 LP are precisely tested, certified and designed to maximize productivity and deliver the cost-effective, professional-quality solution these users require on a daily basis.”

Increasing performance and reliability at a ground-breaking price, both systems are certified for key DCC and CAD applications from independent software vendors such as Autodesk and Adobe. Designed to fit seamlessly in a space-saving configuration, the Quadro FX 370 LP GPU has a MSRP at $149 USD and offers professional graphics performance with fanless cooling for a quieter work environment. The Quadro FX 470 GPU expands end customer access to professional graphics by enabling systems to achieve a price point under $700 USD.

“The Quadro FX 470 integrated chipset is a landmark achievement for professional graphics,” said
Tom Lin, general manager, Server Business Unit, AsusTek COMPUTER Inc. “By offering Quadro FX 470 graphics in our new ASUS TW100-E5 iQuadro workstation, we are giving our customers an entirely new way to get the performance advantages of a Quadro GPU at entry-level pricing. It’s a powerful graphics option that we believe the CAD and design communities will eagerly embrace.”

Delivering the quality and reliability that the market expects from NVIDIA Quadro solutions, the Quadro FX 470 motherboard GPU and Quadro FX 370 LP feature 128-bit precision graphics pipeline, 32-bit floating point precision, filtering and blending, advanced color compression and early z-culling for improved bandwidth and rendering efficiency, and full-scene antialiasing. Additional features include:
* Industry-First Unified GPU Architecture – Dynamically allocates geometry, shading and pixel processing power for high performance in OpenGL, Microsoft DirectX 10 applications
* NVIDIA CUDA™ Technology – Revolutionary parallel computing processor architecture exposed through an extended C language environment, and a tool suite for high-performance visualization
* Shader Model 4.0 Support – Enables ultra-realistic, real-time visualization applications
* NVIDIA nView® Advanced Display Software: The nView hardware and software technology combination delivers maximum flexibility for single-large display or multi-display options and provides unprecedented end-user control of the desktop experience
* I/O Scalability and Performance – Extensive I/O slot support enables peripherals like SAS and dual GbE, which lengthen platform life cycle and performance

The Quadro FX 470 motherboard GPU is available from NVIDIA System Integrator partners. The Quadro FX 370 LP GPU is available today, with a MSRP of $149 USD. For more information on NVIDIA Quadro technologies and products, please visit: www.nvidia.com/quadro.

About NVIDIA
NVIDIA (Nasdaq: NVDA) is the world leader in visual computing technologies and the inventor of the GPU, a high-performance processor which generates breathtaking, interactive graphics on workstations, personal computers, game consoles, and mobile devices. NVIDIA serves the entertainment and consumer market with its GeForce® graphics products, the professional design and visualization market with its Quadro® graphics products, and the high-performance computing market with its Tesla™ computing solutions products. NVIDIA is headquartered in Santa Clara, Calif. and has offices throughout Asia, Europe, and the Americas. For more information, visit www.nvidia.com.