Nvidia has released the Titan V graphics processing unit (GPU) for a price of $2,999. The dramatic introduction touts it as the most powerful GPU ever created, with up to 110 teraflops of performance.
The Nvidia Titan V GPU is, like Nvidia’s other models, a graphics processing unit used to manufacture video cards. It is based on the Nvidia Volta architecture, has 12GB of HBM2 video memory, 640 tensor cores, and 5120 CUDA cores.
The Nvidia Titan V is designed for deep learning and scientific simulation. Deep learning is a subfield of machine learning, which involves training computer programs to analyze data for various purposes.
Deep learning is the technology behind autonomous cars’ computer vision systems (these enable the cars to identify people and objects in their path), the spam filters that keep your inbox clean, speech recognition systems, security systems, and much more.
Another potential application for this video card technology is cryptocurrency mining. Cryptocurrencies such as Ethereum utilize GPUs for their mining operations, which is essentially the verification of cryptocurrency transactions.
More powerful GPUs can verify more transactions, leading to faster transaction times on the blockchain. The high energy efficiency that Nvidia claims it has will be especially helpful, as it could increase the profitability of cryptocurrency mining by reducing the power consumption of mining rigs.
While these applications are in the industrial and scientific domain, Nvidia has classified the Titan V as a PC GPU. It appears their intention is to combine the technology of consumer GPUs and industrial GPUs into one. The $2,999 price point is indicative of a commercial technology, as people don’t need that kind of technology for PCs. Nevertheless, the option is there.
