Nvidia firms up Fermi specification

Nvidia has released the first technical details of its next-generation PC graphics hardware, codenamed Fermi.

The new core is officially dubbed the GF100, and the first boards will include 512 execution cores, 48 render output processors and a 384-bit GDDR5 bus.

Specific product names and price points haven’t been confirmed, but speaking at the launch in San Jose, Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang announced that the architecture would extend right across the company’s GeForce, Quadro and Tesla ranges.

Fermi cards are designed with a focus on code execution as well as gaming performance, bringing a new memory architecture that allows developers to write GPU-based routines in C++.

This sophistication means the GPU features an unprecedented three billion transistors — a reason, perhaps, why the company is taking so long to get cards to market.

Fermi was announced last September, but cards aren’t expected to go on sale until March.

PCPro