It's *not* artificially crippled. It *never* was. That's the sort of
nonsense you get from reading Charlie Demerjian (whom I can only assume
must have had his family fortune destroyed by speculating in NVIDIA
stock)*. While Teslas and Ge Forces shared the same base chip, the
Tesla-grade chips required all double-precision units to be functional
while a Ge Force only needed 1 out of 4 to work to be shippable. So you're
getting slightly less functional chips for far less money. And if you
think that's crazy, check out what Intel charges for a 100 MHz clock boost
on a consumer CPU.
You are correct however that AMBER performance in SPDP mode is more or less
equivalent between a GTX 570 and an M2070. But that changes dramatically
in full double-precision mode however where the M2070 is roughly 2x faster
(go ahead, try it). There's also a hardware bug in Ge Force chips that
breaks parallel runs that has never manifested in Tesla so it's not quite
as black and white.
So I'd say stick with the M2090s for now (or just wait and see what GK110
delivers before making such a call).
Scott
*He seemed much saner in the 1990s when we were both Atari Jaguar
developers and talked regularly over IRC. He even stopped by my apartment
once apparently while I was at a conference. Oh well, whatever floats his
boat.
On Wed, Mar 28, 2012 at 9:54 AM, Aron Broom <broomsday.gmail.com> wrote:
> In terms of this double precision hit, how do you think that will work out
> on the workstation cards?
>
> I know for the Fermi cards for instance, the double precision was
> artificially crippled in the consumer cards (GTX 580) to be 1/4 of what it
> was in the workstation (M2090). In testing AMBER and other programs (NAMD)
> on a GTX 570 and M2070 (almost identical number of cores) I've found no
> real improvement in speed with the M2070, which suggests that the 4x double
> precision wasn't entirely needed for AMBER or NAMD.
>
> So the question then is: is the low double precision capability of the 680
> partially because it has again been artificially crippled, and the
> corresponding workstation cards will actually have enough double precision
> performance to show something fantastic?
>
> Personally I'm fine with buying up a bunch of GTX570s when people are
> trying to clear out that model, but I know some people who will be looking
> to purchase new workstation GPUs soon, and I've love to have a good sense
> of whether or not they should just continue on with the M2090s.
>
> Thanks,
>
> ~Aron
>
> On Wed, Mar 28, 2012 at 12:33 PM, Scott Le Grand <varelse2005.gmail.com
> >wrote:
>
> > After a weekend with GTX 680, what I can say is that this is a great
> gaming
> > GPU with amazing single-precision and texture performance, but it has the
> > same overall memory bandwidth as a GTX 580 with significantly
> > *less*double-precision performance.
> >
> > The upshot is that I expect it to only deliver 85-90% of a GTX 580. And
> > that's partially because there's no increase in memory bandwidth and
> mostly
> > because of the regression in double-precision performance. And that's a
> > shame because single-precision *screams* on this chip.
> >
> > There are compensated single-precision accumulation algorithms that could
> > be used here to ameliorate the performance hit. But this is a dangerous
> > precedent to follow IMO that leads to code fragmentation because
> > double-precision on all Fermi-class GPUs was faster, more precise, and
> > simpler than such algorithms (which themselves where faster on GTX 2xx
> (see
> > Tetsu Narumi's work, sigh). This is a nightmare to validate: GTX 680
> > simply shouldn't have regressed on double-precision performance.
> > Hopefully, the next chip won't. That said, this thing overclocks like
> > crazy and the modder crowd has already doubled the base clock. So
> perhaps
> > not all hope is lost...
> >
> > Scott
> >
> >
> >
> > On Fri, Mar 23, 2012 at 11:57 AM, Scott Le Grand <varelse2005.gmail.com
> > >wrote:
> >
> > > I am very optimistic about GTC680 performance...
> > >
> > > That said, anyone who hacks the configure script to make the current
> code
> > > run will be severely (an unnecessarily) disappointed. Every AMBER
> kernel
> > > has been meticulously shoehorned into GTX2xx and GTX5xx GPUs. GTX680
> is
> > a
> > > radical redesign of Fermi (please don't listen to the dunderheads on
> > review
> > > sites blathering about matters that's beyond them about such things,
> > > seriously). That radical redesign has created a much more efficient
> GPU
> > > (I'm expecting the perf/watt on AMBER to hit transwarp as opposed to
> > merely
> > > warp drive in the near future) but it's been at the expense of 33%
> higher
> > > operational latency.
> > >
> > > 33% higher operational latency is fine - except that the shared memory
> on
> > > GTX680 is exactly the same as GTX580 and that's leading to a ~30%
> > > performance deficit if one just runs the existing code. However, there
> > are
> > > 2x as many machine registers on GTX680 than on GTX580. Or TLDR: I need
> to
> > > rewrite every single kernel for GTX680 from the ground-up to hit
> > attainable
> > > performance.
> > >
> > > So give me a few weeks, mmkay?
> > >
> > > Scott
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > On Fri, Mar 23, 2012 at 11:49 AM, Ross Walker <ross.rosswalker.co.uk
> > >wrote:
> > >
> > >> Hi Filip,
> > >>
> > >> > Hi all,
> > >> > I was wondering
> > >> > what we can expect from GTX680 and in general from the new Kepler
> > line.
> > >> > I know
> > >> > that GTX680 is very limited DP, but should be good in SP mode. Would
> > we
> > >> > expect
> > >> > some speed boost compared to GTX580 and also will it work along
> Amber
> > >> > 11/12?
> > >>
> > >> Amber 11 will NOT support the GTX680 cards (unless you hack the
> > configure
> > >> script to compile it in what is effectively an emulation mode). It
> will
> > be
> > >> too much work to make patch against that. AMBER 12 will support them
> > but it
> > >> is going to take around 6 weeks to 2 months to get the optimization
> done
> > >> and a patch released so it won't support the cards at release but it
> > will
> > >> as soon as we have the patch ready. I can't really give you any
> > performance
> > >> expectations right now, only got my first prototype board yesterday.
> ;-)
> > >>
> > >> Right now if you compile AMBER 12 with PTX support so that it will at
> > >> least run on the GTX680 the performance sucks. It is about 70% of a
> > GTX580.
> > >> NVIDIA changed the hardware too much (massively increasing the threads
> > but
> > >> also the thread latency) so it will need some work to optimize it
> which
> > is
> > >> why I have chosen not to support the cards in AMBER 12 until we have
> > that
> > >> optimization done. Once it is done I expect considerable improvement
> > over
> > >> GTX580 speeds but can't give you anything concrete right now.
> > >>
> > >> > P.S. Indeed most
> > >> > of us will probably wait for GK110, but CUDA capability of GTX680 is
> > >> > very limited now.
> > >>
> > >> This is probably a good idea, at least you should wait until we have
> had
> > >> a chance to get our hands dirty with the GK104 chip. So I'd urge you
> to
> > >> wait at least until we have the patch ready for AMBER 12.
> > >>
> > >> All the best
> > >> Ross
> > >>
> > >> /\
> > >> \/
> > >> |\oss Walker
> > >>
> > >> ---------------------------------------------------------
> > >> | Assistant Research Professor |
> > >> | San Diego Supercomputer Center |
> > >> | Adjunct Assistant Professor |
> > >> | Dept. of Chemistry and Biochemistry |
> > >> | University of California San Diego |
> > >> | NVIDIA Fellow |
> > >> | http://www.rosswalker.co.uk | http://www.wmd-lab.org/ |
> > >> | Tel: +1 858 822 0854 | EMail:- ross.rosswalker.co.uk |
> > >> ---------------------------------------------------------
> > >>
> > >> Note: Electronic Mail is not secure, has no guarantee of delivery, may
> > >> not be read every day, and should not be used for urgent or sensitive
> > >> issues.
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> _______________________________________________
> > >> AMBER mailing list
> > >> AMBER.ambermd.org
> > >> http://lists.ambermd.org/mailman/listinfo/amber
> > >>
> > >
> > >
> > _______________________________________________
> > AMBER mailing list
> > AMBER.ambermd.org
> > http://lists.ambermd.org/mailman/listinfo/amber
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Aron Broom M.Sc
> PhD Student
> Department of Chemistry
> University of Waterloo
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Received on Wed Mar 28 2012 - 10:30:03 PDT
