Why NVIDIA has a GP100 and GP102 GPU

Posted on Saturday, August 20 2016 @ 12:15 CEST by Thomas De Maesschalck
NVIDIA logo
PC Perspective published an interesting piece that explores why NVIDIA's Pascal generation features both a GP100 and a GP102 GPU. The GP100 is used by the Tesla P100 datacenter card, this model has a 600mm² die area, features 3840 CUDA cores, HBM2 memory and an ideal ratio of 1:2:4 between FP64:FP32:FP16 performance.

The GP102 on the other hand is used for the new Titan X, this consumer-level card swaps the HBM2 for GDDR5X memory and features the same 3840 CUDA core count in a 471mm² package. One big difference though is that this model has much wore FP64 and FP16 performance.
Anyway, that aside, it puts NVIDIA in an interesting position. Splitting the xx0-class chip into xx0 and xx2 designs allows NVIDIA to lower the cost of their high-end gaming parts, although it cuts out hobbyists who buy a Titan for double-precision compute. More interestingly, it leaves around 150mm2 for AMD to sneak in a design that's FP32-centric, leaving them a potential performance crown.
You can read the full piece over here.


About the Author

Thomas De Maesschalck

Thomas has been messing with computer since early childhood and firmly believes the Internet is the best thing since sliced bread. Enjoys playing with new tech, is fascinated by science, and passionate about financial markets. When not behind a computer, he can be found with running shoes on or lifting heavy weights in the weight room.



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