NVIDIA A40
NVIDIA® A40 is the world’s most powerful GPU for visual computing from the data center for today’s design, creative, and scientific challenges (When it is launched). Built on NVIDIA’s Ampere architecture, the A40 combines the latest generation RT Cores, Tensor Cores, and CUDA® cores with 48GB of GPU memory for unprecedented graphics, compute, and AI performance.
NVIDIA A40 Architectural Innovations
CUDA Cores: The NVIDIA Ampere architecture-based GPU CUDA cores bring up to 2X the single-precision floating point (FP32) throughput compared to the previous generation, providing significant performance improvements for graphics workflows such as 3D model development and compute for workloads such as desktop simulation for computer-aided engineering (CAE).
RT Cores: Second-generation RT Cores provide up to 2X the throughput of the first generation, and the ability to concurrently run ray tracing with other graphics or compute tasks such as pixel shading or denoising. This significantly accelerates renders for workflows such as M&E content creation, AEC design evaluations, and manufacturing virtual prototyping. The addition of hardware accelerated Motion BVH (bounding volume hierarchy) improves motion blur rendering performance compared to the previous generation.
Tensor Cores: Third-generation Tensor Cores provide up to 5X the training throughput of the previous generation. The new Tensor Float 32 (TF32) precision accelerates AI calculations with zero code changes, significantly reducing the time required for AI model training. Hardware support for structural sparsity provides up to 10x higher throughput by reducing network model size and speeding up model execution. The latest generation of Tensor Cores also support the brain floating-point format (BFloat16).
Encode/decode engines: The A40 includes one video encode engine and two decode engines, including support for AV1 decode. The A40 delivers the performance required for multi-stream video workloads such as security and video serving.
PCIe Gen 4: The A40 supports PCI Express Gen 4 (PCIe Gen 4), which doubles the bandwidth of PCIe Gen 3 from 15.75 gigabytes per second (GB/sec) to 31.5 GB/sec for x16 connection, improving data transfer speeds from CPU memory for data-intensive tasks such as AI, data science, and creating 3D models from large datasets. Faster PCIe performance also accelerates GPU direct memory access (DMA) transfers, providing faster video data transfers from GPUDirect® for Video-enabled devices and faster input/output (I/O) with GPUDirect Storage.
Motion BVH (bounding volume hierarchy): Hardware-accelerated rendering of motion blur—a common cinematic effect that is difficult to render—means artists no longer need to rely on traditional methods of using motion vectors to achieve motion blur. Motion vectors give the artist flexibility to adjust motion blur in post but require visual fixes for reflections and translucency.
Display support: Using the available display ports, A40 can be used to power large display walls for use cases like virtual production, broadcast, and localized entertainment. A single A40 features three DisplayPort 1.4a connectors and the ability to drive a maximum of up to four 5K (5120 x 2880) at 60 Hz displays. Display support also includes the ability to drive two 8K displays. A40 supports DisplayPort 1.4a, which enables a single cable to drive an 8K display at 60Hz using Display Stream Compression (DSC)
NVIDIA A40 USE CASES
- Rendering
Second-generation RT Cores provide up to 2X the throughput of the previous generation and enable concurrent ray tracing and shading, improving ray tracing performance.
With 48 GB of GPU memory, expanding to 96 GB with NVLink on two GPUs, the NVIDIA A40 provides the memory capacity required for the largest GPU-accelerated renders.
- Virtual Workstations
Combined with NVIDIA vGPU software, the NVIDIA A40, with 48 GB of GPU memory, can accelerate the world’s most powerful virtual workstations which can be accessed remotely from the data center.
The NVIDIA Ampere architecture-based GPU CUDA cores and third-generation Tensor Cores provide increased performance compared to the previous generation for compute-intensive workloads like data science, deep learning, and machine learning with NVIDIA Virtual Compute Server (vCS) software.
- Scalable Visualization
Power immersive visual experiences with NVIDIA A40, when display ports are enabled, taking advantage of NVIDIA display technologies such as Quadro Sync and NVIDIA Mosaic in display mode for perfect multi-display video synchronization and visualization to create high-resolution display environments such as cave automatic virtual environments (CAVEs), massive display walls, or location-based entertainment
- Manufacturing
Design, engineer, render, simulate, and analyze your next great creation from anywhere with NVIDIA RTX Virtual Workstation (vWS) software. Develop and analyze complex products and visualize massive assemblies in real-time.
Second-generation RT Cores provide up to 2X the throughput of the first generation and enable concurrent ray tracing and shading. Design reviews can be accelerated to review high-fidelity visualizations with physically accurate materials, lighting, and reflections in real time. This improved performance unlocks the ability to evaluate new product concepts rapidly and create stunning marketing content directly from computer-aided design (CAD) geometry.
- AI & Data Science
Accelerate AI, data science, and deep learning workloads in a virtual environment with NVIDIA Virtual Compute Server software.
Access the latest GPU-optimized software for deep learning (DL), machine learning (ML), and high-performance computing (HPC) with the NGC™ catalog
- AR/VR at the Edge
With NVIDIA A40 GPUs, researchers, developers, and scientists can provision servers to provide multiple high-performance workstations for augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) development at the edge.
The NVIDIA software stack includes NVIDIA RTX Virtual Workstation (vWS) software for provisioning multiple high-performance virtual workstations, NVIDIA’s extensive developer tools for developing AR and VR, and the NVIDIA CloudXR™ SDK for driving wireless AR/VR experiences.
References and Suggested Further Reading:-
A40 GPUs On E2E Cloud
Now that you’ve already started to think of ways how you could utilize Ampere A40 GPUs, why not go with the best-suited cloud-based GPUs to maximize the performance and minimize the total cost of ownership?
- Here’s why you should consider using E2E Networks’ A40 GPU Cloud:
All the GPU servers of E2E networks run in Indian datacenters, hence reducing latency.
Powerful hardware deployed along with cutting-edge engineering that renders increased reliability.
Uptime SLAs so that you worry less and do more
Inexpensive pricing plans designed according to the needs of customers.
These features not only make E2E GPU Cloud services stand out from others in the market but it also helps you to stay ahead of your competition by outperforming them.
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