Los Angeles, CA, SIGGRAPH  -- NVIDIA launched the second generation of its breakthrough workstation platform, NVIDIA Maximus, featuring Kepler, the fastest, most efficient GPU architecture.

The Maximus platform, introduced in November, gives workstation users the ability to simultaneously perform complex analysis and visualization on a single machine. Now supported by Kepler-based GPUs, Maximus delivers unparalleled performance and efficiency to professionals in fields as varied as manufacturing, visual effects and oil exploration.

Maximus initially broke new ground as a single system that handles interactive graphics and the compute-intensive number crunching required to simulate or render them – resulting in dramatically accelerated workflows. With this second generation of Maximus, compute work is assigned to run on the new NVIDIA Tesla K20 GPU computing accelerator, freeing up the new NVIDIA Quadro K5000 GPU to handle graphics functions. Maximus unified technology transparently and automatically assigns visualization and simulation or rendering work to the right processor.

“With the parallel processing capabilities enabled by NVIDIA Maximus systems, we can now be 10 times more creative,” said Alan Barrington, a designer at the Mercedes-Benz Advanced Design Center California. “With the NVIDIA Maximus-powered environment, we can continue to refine and improve our design, right up to the last minute. We can stay efficient and multitask. We no longer have to settle for less or to compromise on our creativity.”

NVIDIA Maximus: Boosting Graphics and Compute

Powered by the Kepler architecture, the second generation of Maximus improves both the visualization and computation capabilities of the platform.

Key NVIDIA Quadro K5000 GPU features include:

• Bindless Textures that give users the ability to reference over 1 million textures directly in memory while reducing CPU overhead
• FXAA/TXAA film-style anti-aliasing technologies for outstanding image quality
• Increased frame buffer capacity of 4GB, plus a next-generation PCIe-3 bus interconnect that accelerates data movement by 2x compared with PCIe-2
• An all-new display engine capable of driving up to four displays simultaneously with a single K5000
• Display Port 1.2 support for resolutions up to 3840x2160 @60Hz

• Key NVIDIA Tesla K20 GPU features include:
• SMX streaming multiprocessor technology for up to a 3x performance per watt advantage¹
• Dynamic Parallelism and Hyper-Q GPU technologies for simplified parallel programming and dramatically faster performance

Transforming Workflows Across Industries, From Jet Engine Design to Seismic Analysis

Here are some examples of how Maximus is transforming workflows across industries:

• For the manufacturing and design industry, NVIDIA Maximus -powered workstations enable professionals to design without limits on size of assemblies, number of components, image quality, or resolution. Designers can use real-world physics, lighting, and materials during interactive design, and visualize with photo-realistic image quality.

“RTT DeltaGen offers custom features such as rapid raytracing, rendering and scalability, automated layer rendering, and computational fluid dynamics visualization and analysis,” said Peter Stevenson, CEO, RTT USA, Inc. “Maximus second generation is remarkable, forward-thinking technology that will further empower our clients by providing them with the ability to do interactive design and simulation, which will accelerate their time to insight of their engineering data so they can make final design decisions even faster.”