Jon Peddie Research Professional Graphics CGW Webinar

Jon Peddie Research Evolution of Professional Graphics Yesterdays Landscape Pro graphics distinguished from consumer/corporate graphics by most every metric –Vendor, chips, boards, bus, memory, video I/O, OS, middleware/APIs, usage, performance, price Excusive domain of Traditional Proprietary Workstation (TPW) vendors –Sgi, Sun, HP, DEC and IBM drove the innovation –Proprietary UNIX/VMS were the only OSes

Jon Peddie Research Evolution of Professional Graphics Todays Landscape Hardware migration from in-house to IHV –IHVs are vertical: chips and AIBs –TPW vendors no longer build graphics chips Enable IHV hardware with drivers for proprietary Unix A few unique high-end board configurations Gaming is driving innovation –E.g. programmable shaders, floating-point precision –Even $1K+ multi-board monsters: Alienware and Nvidias SLI Much harder to distinguish from consumer AIBs –Cost premium has dropped considerably

Jon Peddie Research Graphics Hardware Differentiation Professional vs. Consumer Brand Reliability –ISV certification Customer support Breadth of driver support –OpenGL ICDs –64-bit Linux and Windows drivers Performance and price can be a low priority –Legacy requirements can sustain lagging hardware

Jon Peddie Research Graphics Hardware Differentiation Professional vs. Consumer Remaining GPU differences artificial and/or minor –(Virtually) no difference in raw die –Nvidia and ATI lead with same GPU/VPUs from consumer line relatively minor driver, package and or board-exposed features Board-level differences significant at high-end only –Value varies by application –Physical memory DCC and vis-sim have never-ending appetite for textures –Display support optimized for pro applications Framelock, genlock, interface type (e.g. SDI) Number and datarate of video interfaces Ultra-high resolution (e.g. dual dual-link for up to 9 Mpixel displays)

Jon Peddie Research 2003 Professional Graphics Hardware Market Nearly 2.1 million professional graphics AIBs sold Almost $1B in revenue Legacy in-house graphics from TPW vendors small but significant –Only 5% of units shipped, but 16% of revenue –Incremental opportunity for IHVs Units are in the low-end, but revenue is in the mid-range

Jon Peddie Research JPR Pro Graphics AIB Classes Class ASP Range minmax 2D$400 Entry-3D$350 Mid-range$350$950 High-end$950$1,500 Ultra High-end$1,500

Jon Peddie Research Vendor Profile 5% (units) and 11% (revenue) share in 2003 –but 26% and 44% unit share in high and ultra-high Pro Gfx flagship: Realizm What sets Realizm apart –Exclusive focus on professional apps –Chip-level scalability –16-bit FP format in frame buffer –Virtual, paged video memory Where 3DLabs is going –Fighting hard to keep high-end dominance Largest physical memory, Multi-chip AIBs, Genlock / framelock –Realizm trickle-down to mid-range and low-end?

Jon Peddie Research Vendor Profile 17% (units) and 15% (revenue) share in 2003 –Unbranded presence in 2D applications Pro graphics flagship: Fire GL 7100 What sets Fire GL apart –A strong mid-range focus (31%) –Subjective edge in quality and quality/performance –Perf/W has won mobile and embedded sockets ATI dominant in mobile workstations (67%) Where ATI is going –Best positioned to ride growth in mobile workstation –Can it (should it) ignore high end of market?

Jon Peddie Research Vendor Profile JPR estimates* 9% (units) and 11% (revenue) share in 2003 –But ~17% in 2D segment Slanted heavily toward direct sales Not directly targeting power renderers –Appeal on basis of image quality and specific, niche features Where is Matrox going? –Road ahead looks difficult in keeping pace on GPUs Last major introduction, Parhelia, was out in May 2002 Move to programmable shaders and floating-point requires overhaul –Some key competitive advantages going away More 2D competition from Nvidia, ATI and maybe soon IGPs Fewer areas of differentiation, e.g. super-high res (9 Mpixel) –OEM presence declining –Continued focus on custom-fit solutions for large customers * Matrox is private and does not disclose financials

Jon Peddie Research Vendor Profile 67% (units) and 47% (revenue) share in 2003 Pro gfx flagship: Quadro FX 4000 (NV40 GPU) What sets Nvidia apart –Breadth of offerings, entry to ultra-high end –Shader Model 3.0 vs. 2.0 –SLI: Board level scalablity –Custom offerings for DCC, vis-sim Where Nvidia is going –Trying to take share in existing segments From 3Dlabs in the high/ultra-high end –Think margin, not units –Sales synergy From ATI in the mobile space (MXM and Axiom) –Getting GPUs into new segments, like render farms

Jon Peddie Research Pro Graphics Technology Trends Final stage of migration to fully programmable architecture –Richer, cleaner programming: large code, predication, branching –Changing how graphics hardware vendors will compete Leveraging parallelism –Todays flagship GPUs: 6 vertex and 16 pixel pipelines (ATI/Nvidia) –Chip-level (3DLabs) and Board-level (Nvidia) scalability Continuing to annex upstream processing –Physics, kinematics, simulation, animation, tessellation Vehicle for general purpose computing (GPGPU), –Why Intels biggest threat may someday be not AMD but Nvidia Floating-point precision GDDR3 memory

Jon Peddie Research PCI Express for Graphics Serial, point-to-point, packets –More a network interconnect than a traditional I/O bus Variable number of lanes –Graphics design center: 16-lane More bandwidth, but remember: –Directionally constrained: 4GB/s up, 4GB/s down –In-band command, control and packet overhead reduces bw Just in time to carry the load –Most apps on most hardware today not constrained by AGP 8X –Some may be … it all depends HD video editing Hybrid CPU/GPU render for DCC Src: PCI-SIG

Jon Peddie Research PCI Express Graphics AIBs Form factor derived from PCI Power budgets –10W: ×1 cards (<= 6.6 length) –25W: ×1 cards (> 7.0 length), ×4 cards, ×8 cards, ×16 low-profile graphics and ×16 server I/O –75W: full-height graphics cards –High-end Graphics Spec will allow auxiliary power for up to 150W Src: PCI-SIG

Jon Peddie Research PCI Express Connectors Up-plugging allowed OEMs encouraged to support wider connectors –Link width not determined by connector or interface, negotiated at config time –More end-user flexibility –Allows dual high-bw ( AGP 8X) graphics AIBs Src: PCI-SIG

Jon Peddie Research GPU Interfaces to PCI Express To bridge or not to bridge Initial plans spurred some mud-slinging –ATI planned all native PCIe interfaces –Nvidia indicated plans to bridge with on-board HSI (AGP 16X) –3DLabs Realizm depends on configuration In the end, it will most likely be a non-issue –Speedup of full-speed PCIe interface is exception and debatable –ATI will likely bridge back to AGP –HSI does not preclude native PCIe – NV45 is out already –3DLabs likely to fill in low-end PCIe offerings, too Dell should ship Nvidia and ATI PCIe AIBs July, 3DLabs later this quarter

Jon Peddie Research Pro Graphics Market Trend Forecast Strong growth in Mobile Workstations Final phase in transition to all-IHV graphics AIBs configured for specific applications –Genlock and SDI for DCC studio apps –Framelock for vis-sim and wall-display applications IGPs for pro graphics? Never say never. –What about Grantsdale for 2D workstation apps? –Why Nvidia/ATI/3DLabss biggest competitor may someday be Intel GPUs to final frame rendering?

Jon Peddie Research Nvidias Application-specific AIB Configurations Nvidia Quadro FX 3000G I/O Nvidia Quadro FX 4000 SDI I/O

Jon Peddie Research GPUs in the Render Farm? Graphics hardware is absent in the render farm ISVs/IHVs looking to final-frame speedup as well –Enablers Primary: advent of programmable hardware shaders with compilers Secondary: FP color precision, more flexible programming (larger code, predication, branching) –Nvidia Gelato, Mental Images Mental Ray 3.3 Vendors would welcome 10Ks of incremental professional GPUs Not a slam-dunk –Global illumination, raycasting techniques (e.g raytracing and volume rendering) dont map very well (at least not yet) to GPUs

Jon Peddie Research Technology Forecast Impact of Longhorn Image quality –Gamma, sRGB, 32-bit FP, Text enhancements Virtualization to support Avalon, Presentation Manager –Virtual memory, mostly under OS/driver interaction –GPU: Hyper Threading-like context management Pixel rates will be especially stressed –Lots of temporary textures, surfaces to be warped, composited, blended Dual, cascaded vertex shaders Moving to (optional) programmable hardware tessellation Security & stability –simpler drivers, hang prevention OpenGL ICDs should be upgraded for Longhorn (but not required)

Jon Peddie Research Windows Graphics Foundation Longhorn and Beyond Src: Microsoft, WinHEC 2004

Jon Peddie Research Backup Slides

Jon Peddie Research Hardware Differentiation vs. Consumer Disappearing Historical DifferentiatorFuture differentiator? OpenGL vs. DirectXMinor, esp. with OGL2 Anti-aliased points / linesNo. Can be rendered with shaded polygons; even enhanced (e.g. miter) Rendering performanceVery little… performance driven by games Color fidelityVery little … internal FP32, stored as FP16 (display?); attention to sRGB and gamma becoming pervasive AntialiasingVery little, ># samples at high end (highest end is software) Display resolutionYes, at the high end with 9 MPix 2 nd order rendering features: e.g. two-sided lighting, user clip planes Very little … implemented with shader Multi-displayLittle … even IGPs going dual-display Genlock, FramelockYes, at high end Multi-chip implementationsYes, at high end Overlay planesYes, but trivial to implement StereoYes, but relatively easy to implement