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NVIDIA launches its most powerful graphics card yet, the Pascal-based Quadro P6000

By Wong Chung Wee - on 27 Jul 2016, 6:23pm

NVIDIA launches its most powerful graphics card yet, the Pascal-based Quadro P6000 graphics card

The NVIDIA Quadro P6000 (Image source: NVIDIA)

Like clockwork, NVIDIA has launched its most powerful, enterprise-level graphics card, the Pascal-based Quadro P6000. It is the successor to the current Quadro M6000 that was announced in March 2015. The Quadro P6000 sports the same amount of GDDR5X of video memory, all 24GB of it; however, its GPU has been updated to the latest Pascal GPU architecture. It sports a CUDA core count of 3,840, and its single-precision floating point performance stands at 12 TFLOPS, which is about 71% higher than the Maxwell-based M6000. Pitting the new Quadro P6000 against the just-released NVIDIA Titan X, the former still edges ahead of the Titan X in terms of single-precision floating point performance. In spite of its extreme graphical processing prowess, the Quadro P6000 thermal envelope is capped at 250W.

The NVIDIA Quadro P5000 (Image source: NVIDIA)

Joining the Pascal-based Quadro family is the P5000 that is a step down with a CUDA core count of 2,560. Its sports 16GB of GDDR5X GPU memory, and its single-precision floating point performance measures 8.9 TFLOPS. Its maximum power consumption is capped at 180W. This is the first introduction of the new Pascal GPU architecture to the enterprise-level Quadro series, as a result, the new Quadro cards will get to enjoy the Simultaneous Multi-Projection (SMP) to enable better multi-display and VR experiences. The new Quadro cards will be available from leading OEMs and integrators very soon.

(Image source: NVIDIA)

NVIDIA also took the opportunity to announce software initiatives updates to its ever-expanding ecosystem. First off, the new VRWorks 360 Video SDK was announced to help content creators “capture and broadcast amazing 360 content.” This is because the SDK has been updated to accelerate 360 video stitching; the company claims VRWorks 360 Video will allow video feeds from up to 32 cameras and stitch them into a single 360 degrees video offline or in real-time. However, real-time stitching will be “limited by video ingest capability and system performance.” The SDK will be publicly available by the end of the year.

“Empire State Building,” The Mindy Project, Season 2 Finale. (Image source: Fox, Hollywood Visual Effects via NVIDIA)

NVIDIA has something up its sleeves for Autodesk Maya users as the company is providing its mental ray rendering software directly to Maya 2017 users. As long as users are utilizing global illumination, the new NVIDIA mental ray for Maya will allow for “high-quality global illumination” with its GI-Next solution. GI-Next is GPU-accelerated, “delivering a 10- to 20x speedup by adding just one top-end GPU.” With an improved workflow, the new mental ray for Maya will speed up the process for lighting and material editing. NVIDIA will ship mental ray for Maya this June, pending its completion of its production testing with Maya 2017.

“We at HVE have been using mental ray in Maya for the past 5 years. Unified sampling has allowed us to achieve film quality renders averaging 30 to 40 minutes per frame. This has helped us deliver on time without having to invest in a massive render farm. We look forward to using the upcoming mental ray interactive viewport and GI Next and all with GPU acceleration.” — Jason Howey, VFX Supervisor at Hollywood Visual Effects.

Last of all, the latest version of their GPU ray tracing engine, NVIDIA Optix 4, which allows for the development of physics-based rendering (PBR) applications. Content developers are able to make use of its new Iray VR capabilities to “gain new perspectives on the creations and interacting with them from differing vantage points.” In addition, Optix 4 now supports film-size scenes up to 64GB. In terms of availability, Iray VR will be available as a beta download for DGX-1 and Quadro VCA developers. NVIDIA made its new announcements at Siggraph 2016, a 3-day exhibition on computer graphics and interactive techniques, in Anaheim, California, United States. The exhibition runs from 24 to 28 July.

(Source: NVIDIA)

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