• NVIDIA joins Beijing Genomics Institute for GPU Acceleration

In order to create a Joint Innovation Lab, NVIDIA is joining forces with the Beijing Genomics Institute (BGI), which is tasked with advancing bioinformatics applications through the use of GPU acceleration. Through this combined efforts, NVIDIA hope to advance life science research and improve response time for virus outbreaks and health issues.

The announcement came at BioIT APAC Conference and Expo, in Shenzhen, China, the first event in the Asia Pacific (APAC) region to focus on facilitating the exchange of information and technologies that are driving biomedical research and drug development. The APAC region has become a hotbed of research activity in the bio and life sciences spaces.

BGI is a great partner for NVIDIA. It’s established itself as a world-class research institution and is the developer of many of the most popular bioinformatics applications used worldwide.

The formation of the Joint Innovation Lab stems from a longer relationship that NVIDIA has had with BGI. Developers there have been working for the last few months to tweak some of their bioinformatics applications to run faster with the help of NVIDIA GPUs. These types of applications tend to be large, complex and computationally intensive, so they have an almost insatiable demand for more performance and speed – the kind of performance that GPU technology puts within reach.

In fact, the team at BGI has already ported two key applications to the GPU: GSNP (Genomic Short-read Nucleotide Alignment Program) and SOAP3 (Short Oligonucleotide Analysis Package) – two of the leading, GPU-accelerated, software packages in the genomics space. Early tests of these applications show that they have already achieved performance increases of up to 20x – which is hugely impressive given the short amount of time they have been working on it.

This was announced by Kimberly Powell on the 6th July 2011 at the NVIDIA blog. Well, this is a good step for GPU Acceleration.

• 5x Speedups with NVIDIA GPU Computing program

This press release was available on the 12/07/2011.


Hundreds of Researchers, Scientists Sign Up in Programs First Two Weeks

SANTA CLARA, CA -- (Marketwire) -- 12/07/2011 -- NVIDIA today announced impressive results from the first wave of the new "2x in 4 Weeks. Guaranteed." program, which promotes that programmers can, within a month, at least double their speed in running applications by using The Portland Group (PGI) directives-based compiler and NVIDIA GPUs.

Hundreds of scientists and researchers around the world have registered for the program since it was announced two weeks ago. Some have achieved 5x application speed-ups in as little as one day of programming.

Directives enable parallel programmers to provide simple hints to the compiler, identifying which areas of code to accelerate, without requiring programmers to modify or adapt the underlying code itself. By exposing parallelism to the compiler, directives allow the compiler to do the detailed work of mapping the computation onto the accelerator.

The program allows users to accelerate their applications on NVIDIA® Tesla™ GPUs using the PGI Accelerator compiler, and guarantees at least 2x speed-up of their applications in four weeks or less. Interested developers can register for a free 30-day trial at the NVIDIA "2x in 4 Weeks. Guaranteed." web site.

Initial results reported by program participants include:

• A postdoctoral fellow at the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy (ASTRON) and the University of Groningen is benefiting in his work to understand the origins of the universe using tens-of-thousands of low-frequency antennas of the LOFAR telescope. Within five days of using directives, he was able to accelerate his image-reconstruction application by 5.6x.
• A global manufacturer of navigation systems is speeding up its research involving algorithms for real-time object detection in image sequences. Using directives and GPUs, a developer accelerated the production application by 5x in one week.
• A postdoctoral researcher at the University of Texas at San Antonio is on a mission to better understand the effects of solvents on proteins. By applying directives, he accelerated his application 5x in a single day.

The "2x in 4 Weeks. Guaranteed." program was designed to prepare developers for the coming wave of directives-based solutions based on the new OpenACC™ parallel programming standard. Announced at SC11 in November, the OpenACC program is designed to enable the millions of scientific and technical programmers to easily take advantage of the transformative power of heterogeneous CPU/GPU computing systems.

The OpenACC standard is anticipated to benefit a broad range of programmers working in chemistry, biology, physics, data analytics, weather and climate, intelligence, and many other fields. Existing compilers from Cray, PGI and CAPS are expected to provide initial support for the OpenACC standard beginning in December 2011, and continuing into 2012.

For more information or to participate in the "2x in 4 Weeks. Guaranteed." program, visit the NVIDIA web site, or download the program FAQ. For more information about OpenACC, visit the OpenACC web site. To learn more about Tesla GPUs, visit the Tesla web site.



Data taken from http://pressroom.nvidia.com/easyir/customrel.do?easyirid=A0D622CE9F579F09&version=live&prid=829921&releasejsp=release_157&xhtml=true

• ASUS Dual-GPU GeForce® GTX 690 Review and Specifications

First 28nm graphics card with two GPUs on a single PCB offers dedicated gamers the fastest, smoothest, and most detailed PC entertainment currently available

The ASUS GeForce® GTX 690 graphics card debuts 28nm dual-GPU performance, presenting the most powerful card of the generation thus far. It enables gaming with superior speed, smoothness, and detail. Due to smarter fabrication, its power demands are relatively modest for energy-conservative operation. This promotes easier quad-SLI™ setups with paired ASUS GeForce® GTX 690s. ASUS continues to offer gamers the best overclocking experience with the exclusive GPU Tweak utility, which goes well together with DirectX® 11 and OpenGL® 4.2, plus technologies such as NVIDIA® GPU Boost, advanced anti-aliasing (TXAA/FXAA), and Adaptive Vertical Sync.

Raw 28nm graphics processing power

The ASUS GeForce® GTX 690 has two GeForce® GTX 680 cores mounted on the board, fielding a massive 3072 CUDA cores and representing truly staggering computing power for graphics as well as parallel processing alongside the CPU. The core runs at 1019MHz in boost clock, while the 512-bit memory interface links the system to 4GB of 4096MHz GDDR5 video memory.

Benefits of leaner fabrication come into play

Despite all that power, the ASUS GeForce® GTX 690 has a modest 300W TDP. Gamers therefore tap greater processing capacity while conserving energy thanks to efficient 28nm manufacturing, thus lowering electricity bills and contributing to more environmentally-responsible gaming.

Intuitive graphics controls and tuning with GPU Tweak

ASUS once again includes the exclusive GPU Tweak graphics card tuning suite in the box. Overclocking-inclined buyers can easily go into boost clock speeds, set power targets, and configure fan revolution settings to make adjustments and experiment with performance gains. GPU Tweak offers built-in guards to ensure all modifications are safe, maintaining optimal stability and card reliability. The utility also provides a convenient on-screen monitoring widget and live driver/BIOS updates to ensure the ASUS GeForce® GTX 690 remains up to date.

Moving closer to complete gaming immersion

The ASUS GeForce® GTX 690 presents the most graphics power ever available to consumers, and as such makes even better use of recent developments in software engineering. It furnishes unmatched DirectX® 11 and OpenGL® 4.2 performance, by that guaranteeing considerable future-proofing. Users who wish to set up an NVIDIA® SLI™ configuration can pair two ASUS GeForce® GTX 690’s for instant quad-SLI™ and even more massive compute capabilities.
New ultra-fast anti-aliasing technologies TXAA and FXAA help game developers and designers deliver smoother and more visually appealing experiences to rival high end professional graphics rendering. Additional technologies that promote faster and more attractive gaming include NVIDIA® Adaptive Vertical Sync and hardware-based framerate metering, both ensuring games keep moving at an optimized pace with no slowdowns. The ASUS GeForce® GTX 690 supports NVIDIA® GPU Boost for immediate auto clock speed adjustments as needed, and easily powers four-screen displays via NVIDIA® Surround™. Its single-PCB NVIDIA® 3D Vision™ performance sets new milestones, enabling unmitigated full HD 3D gaming.

ASUS GTX690-4GD5 Overview and Technical Specifications

ASUS GTX 690: dual-GPU power enters the 28nm generation

Specifications

Graphics Engine	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690
Bus Standard	PCI Express 3.0
Video Memory	GDDR5 4GB
Engine Clock	GPU Boost Clock : 1019 MHz GPU Base Clock : 915 MHz
CUDA Core	3072
Memory Clock	6008 MHz ( 1502 MHz GDDR5 )
Memory Interface	512-bit
Resolution	DVI Max Resolution : 2560x1600
Interface	DVI Output : Yes x 1 (DVI-D), Yes x 2 (DVI-I) HDMI Output : Yes x 1 (via DVI to HDMI adaptor x 1 ) Display Port : Yes x 1 (Mini DP)
Accessories	1 x Power cable 1 x DVI to HDMI adaptor
Software	ASUS Utilities & Driver
Dimensions	11 " x 4.4 " x 1.9 " Inch
Note	*Note that the actual boost clock will vary depending on actual system conditions. For more information, please visit http://www.geforce.com/

Data taken from http://www.asus.com/News/kdTosAnA1NYWNqjY/ and http://www.asus.com/Graphics_Cards/NVIDIA_Series/GTX6904GD5/ (accessed on 02 June 2012)