Skip to main content

Someone has used diamonds and a high-end Nvidia GPU to build perhaps the world's fastest graphics card ever — but you won't be able to buy it yet

Diamond Foundry has been trying to figure out how it can use diamonds to keep the temperature of the best CPUs and the best GPUs under control – and it’s generated some gobsmacking results.

Testing on an undisclosed high-end Nvidia GPU – which uses synthetic diamond wafers – has led to roughly three times the recorded performance versus when it was tested with standard manufacturing materials, according to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ).

These benchmarks haven’t been published, so these claims cannot be taken at face value, let alone put a date against which we’d expect diamond-cooled graphics cards to be commercially available. But, if these benchmarks are true, it would make the graphics card the fastest in the world.

Diamonds can be forever

Keeping microchips cool is something that’s becoming more and more pertinent the smaller these components become. In order to pack more power into smaller packages, the industry must find a sustainable and suitable way to keep the components cool to ensure they can hit maximum performance levels for as long as possible.

This is the world’s first 100mm single-crystal diamond wafer and is the culmination of a project that began 30 years ago, according to the company. The organization used a technology called heteroepitaxy to create single-crystal diamonds on scalable substrates – and has found a means to scale this too.

While Diamond Foundry has been exploring whether diamond wafers can be incorporated into chip design, Intel has been focusing on using glass substrates in its product line.

Rather than helping to keep the components cool directly, Intel’s glass solution is being used to improve efficiency and communication between different chips. 

Diamond Foundry is hoping to reduce the defect density in its diamond waver and to realize the full potential of diamond as a cooling mechanism, which, the company claims, is 17,200 times better than silicon and 60 times better than silicon carbide.

More from TechRadar Pro



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The latest Apple TV 4K test lets you watch four sports streams at once

Apple is trying something new with the latest beta version of tvOS 16.5: the option to watch up to four simultaneous streams at once. Right now it's limited to live sports streamed through the Apple TV app on the Apple TV 4K , specifically MLB Friday Night Baseball and the MLS Season Pass. A multi-view option was spotted in the tvOS software last month, but the code was hidden and not enabled. MacRumors reported that the feature would be enabled this weekend, and beta testers have since been able to use it. As yet multi-view hasn't been officially announced by Apple, but it's expected that tvOS 16.5 is going to be pushed out in its final form within the next month or so. WWDC 2023 is around the corner as well, when we should be hearing about the next major updates for Apple's various operating systems – including tvOS 17. How it works Over at 9to5Mac there's a hands-on demonstrating how the multi-view feature works, and it's pretty much as you would expe...
Post a Comment
Read more

Quantum computers are fast becoming cheaper and smaller — and they could be coming to a data center near you very soon

IonQ claims we’re closer to widespread enterprise quantum computing deployment as it lifted the lid on two rack-mounted models that can be deployed on-premises.   The startup has built the fourth-generation #AQ35 IonQ Forte Enterprise and fifth-generation #AQ64 IonQ Tempo, both of which are designed to be deployed in enterprise and government data centers. It’s also said it is deploying two quantum computers to the US Air Force.  While revealing these two models, IonQ co-founder and CTO Jungsang Kim said quantum computers are already in use by enterprises to churn through machine learning workloads. This, he added, suggests we’re much closer to readily available and affordable machines. Priming enterprises for a quantum future “We believe in the enterprise-grade quantum computing, which is where it can be something of value for enterprises, can happen in the next few years as we build powerful enough quantum computers that can actually do things that classical computers w...
Post a Comment
Read more

Nvidia RTX 4080 GPU could get cheaper with a new version – but don’t get your hopes up

Nvidia’s RTX 4080 is purportedly getting a new spin on the GPU which could reduce the cost, but any price reduction will likely be very minor, sadly, if it happens at all. Tom’s Hardware flagged up this rumor – and treat it with caution, as with anything from the ever-spinning mill – that originated from HKEPC (a tech site in Hong Kong), claiming that while the current RTX 4080 graphics card is built on the AD103-300 chip, Nvidia is going to use a slightly different GPU in the future, namely AD103-301. There’s now more evidence this is actually happening, Tom’s points out, courtesy of a graphics card maker, Galax, which under its RTX 4080 product details lists the GPU as ‘AD103-300/301’. Furthermore, VideoCardz , which also picked up on this, informs us that Gainward, another card maker, has also listed the updated GPU variant AD103-301 in its product specs. With two separate third-party graphics card makers mentioning this new spin on the GPU in their specs, it seems pret...
Post a Comment
Read more