PCR Tech and IT retail, distribution and vendor news
This past weekend saw the start of CAD and CAE software developer Dassault Systèmes’ annual trade show SOLIDWORKS World, and the biggest announcement from Sunday came from Nvidia as it launched a range of Pascal-based Quadro products for workstations.
The firm’s last foray into its Quadro workstation video card category was the Quadro P6000, the first high-end Pascal-based Quadro card to be released. Rather than creating a generic ‘powerhouse’ card, the market is so large these days that different needs – consumers, workstations, and servers – all demand different cards.
The P6000 focused its sights firmly on creators, specifically on those creating VR environments. By contrast, the GP100 is more compute-centric, making it a bit harder to place. It’s not necessarily Nvidia’s most powerful card, but it’s designed more with functionality in mind. More specifically, it’s designed to amp up a desktop workstation.
“Professional workflows are now infused with artificial intelligence, virtual reality and photorealism, creating new challenges for our most demanding users,” said Bob Pette, vice president of Professional Visualization at Nvidia. “Our new Quadro lineup provides the graphics and compute performance required to address these challenges. And, by unifying compute and design, the Quadro GP100 transforms the average desktop workstation with the power of a supercomputer.”
This is the last card to be announced for Nvidia’s Quadro Pascal lineup, including the previously announced P5000, P2000 and aforementioned P6000. The entire range supports the latest Nvidia CUDA 8 compute platform which provides developers with access to powerful Pascal features in developer tools, performance enhancements and new libraries including nvGraph.
The GP100 will be availalb estarting in March from workstation vendors including Dell, HP, Lenovo and Fujitsu, and distribution partners including PNY Technologies in Europe.
