Rumor: NVIDIA Kepler/GK104 to Have Dedicated PhysX Hardware

• February 16, 2012
• Written by Mark
• 1 Comment
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Charlie over at SemiAccurate has posted an interesting rumor that the upcoming NVIDIA Kepler, GK104 GPU will have optimizations for physics calculations in the form of dedicated PhysX hardware described as a “PhysX block.” It is unclear whether these optimizations will be actual dedicated PhysX hardware or just more shaders and other PhysX optimizations but SeimAccurate claims to have been told that the “Kepler/GK104 will be marketed as having a dedicated block.” The rumor goes on to discuss that the GK104 will be faster in games that use PhysX. Overall this is a great article covering the current state of PhysX, check it out here. This will be interesting to see if this is true or not.

From Physics hardware makes Kepler/GK104 fast:

Sources tell SemiAccurate that the ‘big secret’ lurking in the Kepler chips are optimisations for physics calculations. Some are calling this PhysX block a dedicated chunk of hardware, but more sources have been saying that it is simply shaders, optimisations, and likely a dedicated few new ops. In short, marketing may say it is, but under the heat spreader, it is simply shaders and optimisations.

With this new bit of information, one big question is answered, but specific hardware implementations details are a bit murky. Is the ‘hardware block’ dedicated to physics calculations when there are some being issued, or is it a AMD/GCN like multiple instruction issue? Is it just shaders with an added op or two that speed up math routines heavily used by physics simulations? How much die area is spent on this functionality? This isn’t very clear, and given the marketing materials Semiaccurate has seen, explanations will only serve to impede the impending hype.

Source [SemiAccurate]

Tags: GK104, GK104 PhysX, Kepler Physics, Kepler PhysX, Nvidia, NVIDIA Kepler, PhysX