gpu

Our Weekly Utilities Update report is a list of updates for Mac utilities that have been released in the past week. Though utilities can be any tool that helps you perform a routine task (including image manipulation and synchronization), our focus in this column is to bring you those tools that help in troubleshooting Mac hardware and software problems.

This week we have updates for popular and free maintenance utilities, along with a file recovery utility for SD cards and a few hardware-based enablers for graphics cards, filesystems, and scanners.

Maintenance

In Maintenance utilities, the makers of Onyx have released … Read more

A year ago when I first noticed a green dot had appeared on my PowerMac G5's display I was a bit disappointed, but not fully surprised because LCD pixels are known to die, go dim, or get stuck in a specific color. Not thinking much of it I dismissed it as a common issue and continued to use my computer; however, these dots were going to soon become a larger problem for me.… Read more

Are you dreading upgrading your graphics processor yet again just so you can get lost in the alien-infested urban jungle of Crysis 2? Rest assured that the immersive power of these state-of-the-art video processors is now being used for more than just visual pleasure.

A new technique for processing X-rays appears to lower the radiation patients are exposed to during cone beam computed tomography (CBCT) scans by a factor of 10 or more, according to researchers at the University of California, San Diego.

The research is being presented this week at the American Association of Physicists in Medicine's 52nd annual meeting in Philadelphia.

Lead author Xun Jia, a UCSD postdoctoral fellow, based his team's work on recent advances in compressed sensing by developing a CT reconstruction algorithm for graphics processing unit platforms (GPU cards being used for 3D computer graphics, often in video games), thereby increasing computational efficiency to reconstruct a cone beam CT scan in just minutes.… Read more

Nvidia has released a new suite of graphics drivers for the GTX-285 graphics card. The driver is listed for OS X 10.6.4 only, and is specifically for the GTX-285 card that is available as a third-party purchase for Mac Pro systems.… Read more

If you think the Batmobile is just something from the movies or comic books, researchers at MIT and Harvard University want to change your mind.

As part of a long-term project, the researchers are working on developing a computer that they hope could one day mimic the visualization systems of the human brain. And while there could be many practical applications for such research, one of the sexiest is a potential autonomous vehicle that could use its visualization acumen to navigate roadside dangers or impassable terrain.

According to Nicolas Pinto, a Ph.D. student specializing in brain visualization research at … Read more

China has muscled into the No. 2 spot on the list of the world's fastest supercomputers thanks, in part, to specialized Nvidia graphics chips: a technology that Intel is now pursuing to keep pace with this new trend in high-performance computing.

China's Nebulae supercomputer is located at the recently constructed National Supercomputing Centre in Shenzhen, and achieved 1.271 petaflops/s (1.271 quadrillion floating point operations per second) running the Linpack benchmark, which put it in the No. 2 spot on the widely reported Top500 list. The latest list was formally presented Monday at the International Supercomputing Conference in Hamburg, Germany. (Jaguar, a Cray system at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, retained the top spot.)

Nebulae achieved this "in part due to its Nvidia GPU (graphics processing unit) accelerators...Nebulae reports an impressive theoretical peak capability of almost 3 petaflop/s--the highest ever on the TOP500," according to a press release Friday.

Though Nebulae also uses Intel Xeon processors, those are so-called commodity processors that are also employed in standard server computers. So, Intel--despite canceling its Larrabee graphics chip project--is pursuing a technology that leverages Larrabee R&D. On Monday, Intel said the first product of this kind, code-named Knights Corner, will be made on its future 22-nanometer manufacturing process--using transistor structures as small as 22 billionths of a meter--to pack more than 50 processing cores on a single chip.

On Tuesday, I spoke with Jack Dongarra, Distinguished Professor at University of Tennessee's Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and director of the Innovative Computing Laboratory. Dongarra introduced the LINPACK Benchmark, which is used as the primary yardstick to measure supercomputer performance.

Q: Are GPU accelerators in supercomputers a trend we'll see more of in coming years? Jack Dongarra: This looks like this is going to be one of the modes of high-performance computing.… Read more

Graphics card maker Nvidia has revealed, via a corporate blog post, a new laptop GPU, called the GeForce GTX 480M. The company claims it will be the "world's fastest notebook GPU."

Using the same basic chip (GF100) and architecture ("Fermi") as its current desktop graphics cards, Nvidia calls the GTX 480M, "DirectX 11 done right for notebooks," and it will support standard Nvidia features such as PhysX and 3D Vision.

For right now, the only PC manufacturer initially confirmed to making GTX 480M systems is Clevo, but we expect other systems will be … Read more

On Apple's latest MacBook Pro systems, the dual GPU setup allows for dynamic switching between the onboard and discrete graphics chips to optimize performance and battery life, depending on the tasks at hand. This is convenient; however, Apple does not provide an easy way to manage the different GPUs on the system, and if you like to tinker you may find the utility gfxCardStatus useful, both for newer and older machines.… Read more

An Nvidia executive appearing on a local San Francisco TV show on Friday said that Intel is denying consumers the chance to use Nvidia chips, likely presaging more verbal sparring and future legal wrangling between the two chip giants.

In a video posted on Nvidia's Web site, Daniel Vivoli, a senior vice president at the graphics chip supplier, said in response to a question from a panelist on the show that consumers shouldn't be "denied the ability" to use lower-end Nvidia graphics technology.

Nvidia and Intel have been skirmishing since February 2009 when Intel claimed in … Read more