NVIDIA eyes entertainment market

NVIDIA RTX Servers can now deliver GPU-accelerated, cinematic-quality graphics enhanced by ray tracing at a fraction of the cost, space and power requirements cost of a CPU-based rendering cluster with the same performance.

Source: NVIDIA. The new RTX Server.

Announced by NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang at the company's annual GPU Technology Conference t(GTC), the new system features 1,280 Turing GPUs on 32 RTX blade Servers. Each RTX blade server packs 40 GPUs into an 8U space and can be shared by multiple users with NVIDIA GRID vGaming or container software. Mellanox technology is used as the backbone storage and networking interconnect.

“We’ve optimised RTX Servers for use by cloud gaming operators, enabling them to render and stream games at the performance levels of GeForce RTX 2080 GPUs to any client device,” said Bob Pette, VP and GM of Professional Visualization/Quadro at NVIDIA, in a blog post announcing the servers.

Pette said cloud-rendered augmented reality and virtual reality (AR and VR) applications are within reach with RTX Servers using low-latency mobile edge computing, especially with the advent of 5G.

“Applying edge computing to cloud gaming benefits both fixed-line and mobile broadband networks by eliminating the physical distance between network hubs and game Servers that can add to latency.,” Pette said in the blog post.

By deploying optimised RTX Servers with NVIDIA-managed GeForce NOW software in their data centres, service providers can get a turnkey solution to deliver computationally demanding content, NVIDIA said. NVIDIA also announced that Softbank in Japan and LG Uplus in Korea will be among the first to deploy RTX Servers for cloud gaming in 2019.

Pette disclosed that NVIDIA is working with HTC to bring cloud gaming and VR wirelessly into homes. “The HTC 5G Hub — a 5G hotspot, Android entertainment device and battery pack all-in-one — is ideal for fixed wireless access (FWA) for 5G broadband homes. The GeForce NOW app is being optimized for the HTC Hub to provide a low latency cloud gaming experience over 5G,” he said.

“We’re also working together to support CloudVR, enabling virtual reality apps to be rendered on RTX Servers in cloud data centres and streamed to the HTC VIVE headset without a local PC or cables to enable a mobile, high-end VR experience.”

NVIDIA also boosted collaboration for globally-distributed production teams working on animation, visual effects and industrial design. Typically, different teams work on different segments of a content asset independently, and never see the final product till it is assembled later on. The new NVIDIA Omniverse will allow the extended team to see and interact in real time with changes made by others working on the same asset in a different application.

Manufacturers including Dell, HPE, Lenovo, ASUS and Supermicro have unveiled newly-validated NVIDIA RTX Servers for highly configurable, on-demand rendering and virtual workstation solutions. “Studios can have one, easy-to-manage server with multiple virtual workstations, so employees can share GPU resources and securely access their work from any location,” said Pette.

“We are enabling content producers to create more visually-rich graphics and renderings faster than ever before. With the HPE Apollo 6500 Gen10, HPE ProLiant DL380 Gen10 and HPE ProLiant ML350 Gen10, we will offer the NVIDIA RTX Server to provide designers with GPU-accelerated power and performance for the most efficient end-to-end rendering solutions, from interactive sessions on the desktop to final batch rendering in the data centre,” said Bill Mannel, VP and GM, HPC and AI Group, Hybrid IT, Hewlett Packard Enterprise

“NVIDIA RTX Server provides benefits to users and organisations with the best performing and most efficient end-to-end rendering solutions, from batch rendering to interactive rendering in a design viewport. With the flexibility of ASUS solutions such as ASUS ESC4000 G4 and ESC8000 G4, designers can leverage the new AI and ray-tracing features of NVIDIA’s enhanced RTX platform, enabling them to create impressive, stunning designs and visual effects faster than ever before,” stated Jackie Hsu, Corporate VP and GM of Worldwide Sales, ASUS.

“NVIDIA RTX Server combines the ground-breaking Quadro RTX 8000 and RTX 6000 GPUs with Quadro vDWS to deliver a powerful and flexible architecture to meet the demands of creative professionals. Supermicro is proud to be an inaugural partner for the NVIDIA RTX Server programme with the Supermicro SYS-4029GP-TRT,” added Michael McNerney, VP, Marketing and Network Security, Supermicro.

The NVIDIA RTX platform comes in 2U, 4U and 8U form factors and supports multiple NVIDIA GPU options from Quadro RTX GPUs and Quadro vDWS software for professional apps to NVIDIA GPUs with GRID vGaming software for cloud gaming and consumer AR/VR.

Details:

The new 8U RTX blade server will initially be available from NVIDIA in Q319.