AMD is looking to expand its Stream project, which uses graphics chip
processing cores to perform computing tasks normally sent to the CPU, a process
known as General Purpose computing on Graphics Processing Units (GPGPU).
Closely integrating GPU and CPU systems was one of the motivations for AMD's
$5.4bn
acquisition of ATI in 2006.
GPGPU systems have emerged in recent years as a favourite tactic for
high-performance computing tasks.
By leveraging thousands of processing cores on a graphics card for general
computing calculations, tasks such as scientific simulations or geographic
modelling, which are traditionally the realm of supercomputers, can be performed
on smaller, more affordable systems.
AMD Stream Computing director Patricia Harrell said that the company is now
looking to bring the programme to the enterprise and consumer markets.
AMD will release a new driver for its Radeon series on 10 December which will
extend Stream capabilities to the cards. Additionally, developers are being
offered a software development kit which allows them to take advantage of the
Stream system.
Harrell told vnunet.com that AMD hopes eventually to offer a
complete and open platform on which software developers can easily optimise code
for both the CPU and GPU.
"We envision a layer of industry standards that developers can choose from,"
she said. "This will be a really important step to encourage developers to take
advantage of this capability and deploy software."
For everyday users, the advantages will range from dramatically improved
video rendering times, to slight improvements in the performance of everyday
productivity tools.
Terry Makedon, manager of software product management for AMD, told
vnunet.com that even marginal improvements can add up for everyday
office tasks such as reading large PDF files or viewing PowerPoint slides.
"You cannot really notice it, but by the end of the day you have saved 10 or
20 minutes of loading time," he said.
AMD also believes that the greatest benefits of Stream in the consumer and
enterprise fields have yet to be uncovered. If developers latch on to the new
system and optimise their code for Stream, Harrell expects new uses for the
technology to emerge.
"It is my belief that there are killer apps we haven't even touched yet,"
she said. "There is a lot of possibility there."
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