Mini PCI form factor Embedded

Accelerated Computing CUDA CUDA Programming and Performance
1

May b, this is a very naive question.

Can NVIDIA GPU core be plugged into embedded boards?

I am looking at recommending CUDA for a real-time image processing application. But I am not sure if NVIDIA cards can be integrated into real-time embedded boards?

The TI evaluation board (Davinci) that we have has a mini-PCI slot. Are there CUDA capable GPUs that are mini-PCI compatible?

Appreciate your time. Thanks.

Best Regards,
Sarnath

2

No, all G8x cards are PCI-Express currently.

In theory it would be possible to create a board that used a bridge chip to connect to PCI, but the low bandwidth would probably make this pointless. Even if you could connect the board, you would still need a driver that ran on your embedded CPU.

We are evaluating solutions for the embedded market.

3

Simon,

Thanks for the clarification. Hopefully NVIDIA would catch up sooon there. Embedded CPUs anyway run at very less speed (I think so). So, the PCI bridge overhead that you were speaking about might NOT outweigh the CUDA advantage.

And, yes, most embedded devices run linux and so I guess CUDA support should be easy on such systems

4

Actually there is one PCI-based 8200 card, as I remember, but it’s a very low-end model and probably useless for speeding anything up :)

5

Thank you Wumpus. It could make sense in the embedded world! I will try looking at the specs.

Thank you

6

There’s even a PCI 8500 GT:

http://www.sparkle.com.tw/product.asp?id=69

Weird thing, but it could do some good.

7

There are very few hardware platforms using CUDA based GPU solutions in the embedded world. Visit www.vision4ce.com and see our GRIP product

We use mini-ITX and can integrate high end GPU such as 9600 GT over the PCIe x16 bus to get a true desktop solution - this is not not an underclocked 8800M MXM solution

8

Just bought it. It might be useful on a Micro ATX board ;)

Christian

9

Hi,

Any new hardware solutions for embedded platforms ? Embedded CUDA device on Linux RT would be very interresting.

Larry

10

A low profile GT220 card (e.g. ASUS) might fight some embedded boards. Requires a PCI-X 16x slot though, unless you buy or solder or otherwise hack an adaptor ;)

11

While it isn’t exactly “embedded”, I have been working with a Zotac 9300-ITX board recently which is rather good. You get a 16 core MCP79 embedded compute capability 1.1 gpu wuth VGA, DVI and HDMI outs, a full PCI express x16 socket, 3x SATAII, onboard gigabit ethernet and an LGA 775 socket that supports any Core2 CPU up to 95W TDP. I have been running Linux on it and everything works just fine.