The American technology firm NVIDIA, known for designing GPUs (Graphics Processing Units) for the gaming and professional sectors as well as system-on-a-chip (SoC) units for the mobile computing and automotive markets, developed the NVIDIA RTX platform.
The Turing architecture, which replaced the Pascal architecture used in the GTX series of cards, was originally released in August 2018 and marked the debut of the RTX platform. RTX stands apart from earlier GPU architectures thanks to its emphasis on real-time ray tracing and AI capabilities.
In order to produce reflections, refractions, and shadows that seem more realistic than what was possible with earlier rendering approaches, ray tracing models how light interacts with objects in a scene. However, ray tracing requires a lot of computer power. In its RTX series GPUs, NVIDIA created dedicated hardware cores for ray tracing (RT cores) to make it practical for real-time applications like video games.
Tensor cores, specialized hardware for tensor computations—the kind of calculations needed in deep learning—were also introduced by the RTX platform. Tensor cores enable RTX GPUs to utilize AI in a variety of ways, including the enhancement of visuals using methods like Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS).
A game can be rendered at a lower native resolution for performance reasons and then upscaled to a higher resolution for a better visual look thanks to the DLSS approach, which employs AI to upscale lower-quality pictures in real-time. The AI model used in DLSS is trained on high-resolution screenshots from video games and has the ability to “fill in the gaps” to make upscaled pictures resemble original high-resolution rendering.
The RTX series, which ends in September 2021 to the best of my knowledge, consists of GPUs from the 2000 and 3000 series, including the RTX 2060, RTX 2070, RTX 2080, RTX 3060, RTX 3070, RTX 3080, and RTX 3090. These GPUs are frequently utilized in professional graphics workstations, gaming, high-performance computing, and even AI research.
NVIDIA created the RTX platform with the goal of expanding the realm of real-time graphics performance and quality. This was done by combining hardware and software breakthroughs
Nvidia RTX's Promise And Mission
The real-time ray tracing and AI capabilities of the NVIDIA RTX platform were introduced with the intention of redefining real-time graphics. The platform’s promise resides in its capacity to fundamentally alter how we produce and consume digital images, from video games and virtual reality to professional design and visualization software.
The NVIDIA RTX platform’s main goals and promises are broken down as follows:
- Ray tracing, a technique for creating visually correct lighting, shadows, and reflections, was previously only used in non-real-time applications due to its high computing requirements. This changed with the introduction of the RTX platform. Ray tracing was introduced to real-time graphics by NVIDIA RTX, which promised dramatically improved visual realism in games and other interactive applications.
- Real-time graphics applications may now incorporate artificial intelligence (AI) thanks to the Tensor Cores of the RTX platform, which were created to make AI processing easier. NVIDIA’s Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS), which promises greater image quality and faster rendering performance, is one of the main applications of technology. DLSS employs AI to upscale lower-resolution visuals to higher resolutions in real time.
- High-Performance Computing: RTX GPUs are made to perform better in both gaming and professional tasks thanks to the addition of specialist cores (RT Cores for ray tracing, Tensor Cores for AI). By offering faster computing rates and improved visual fidelity, this provides prospective breakthroughs in a variety of fields, including scientific research, engineering, design, and content development.
- The RTX platform also supports sophisticated shading techniques including variable rate shading, which enables different portions of an image to be shaded at various degrees of detail, optimizing GPU utilization and boosting efficiency.
- Future-Proofing Content Creation and Consumption: NVIDIA’s RTX platform promises a future-ready solution that keeps pushing the limits of what’s possible in digital graphics in light of the technology’s quick advancements and rising demand for high-quality visuals in the gaming, film, and design industries.
As a consequence, NVIDIA’s RTX platform promises more than simply enhanced graphics for video games and faster performance for enterprise graphics software. It offers a brand-new method for producing and consuming digital material that seamlessly combines performance and realism.
The Advantages Of RTX
A core component of NVIDIA’s RTX architecture, real-time ray tracing offers a number of advantages that significantly improve user experience across a range of applications, particularly in video games and business visualization software. Some of the primary advantages are as follows:
- The additional visual realism that real-time ray tracing gives to digital content is by far the biggest advantage of this technology. Ray tracing accurately generates reflections, shadows, and refractions that enhance the realism of images by simulating how light behaves in the actual world. This can improve the quality of professional visualizations in industries like architecture, design, and filmmaking and make video games feel more immersive.
- Ray tracing enhances the depiction of complicated lighting effects including ambient occlusion, soft shadows, and global illumination. This enables the creation of landscapes that respond to changing lighting conditions more intuitively, such as the delicate interaction of light and shadow as the sun travels across the sky or the way light reflects off a polished surface.
- Accurate Reflections and Refractions: In classic rasterization-based rendering, it can be difficult to create accurate reflections and refractions, frequently necessitating the employment of different methods that might not always be effective. Ray tracing enhances the representation of reflective surfaces like mirrors, water, glass, and metal by precisely rendering reflections and refractions based on the physical characteristics of light.
- Ray tracing offers constant visual quality in a variety of settings and lighting situations. Developers must frequently manually adjust the lighting and shading parameters for each scene when using rasterization, which might lead to errors. With ray tracing, illumination calculations are made in accordance with physical rules, yielding reliable outcomes.
- Greater Design Freedom: Real-time ray tracing gives game developers and professional artists more latitude to experiment with lighting and materials. Without having to worry about how to manually fake natural lighting and reflections, they can build more intricate and realistic scenarios.
Users will get a more immersive and aesthetically engaging experience thanks to all these advantages, whether they’re playing a video game, exploring a virtual reality world, or looking at a digital model of a product or structure. Real-time ray tracing offers a significant advancement in digital visualization by bringing real-time graphics’ visual quality closer to that of offline, pre-rendered visuals.
The RTX Series From Nvidia
With an emphasis on real-time ray tracing and AI processing, the NVIDIA RTX series, initially announced in 2018 with the Turing architecture, represents a fundamental shift in GPU technology. The line-up of devices in the series spans a range of performance and pricing ranges, from more reasonably priced alternatives ideal for casual gamers to high-end versions created for professionals and enthusiasts.
A summary of the RTX series as of my most recent update in September 2021 is provided below:
- The RTX 20 series served as the prototype for future RTX GPUs. It comprises Super versions of the RTX 2060, 2070, 2080, and 2080 Ti as well as the RTX 2060, 2070, and 2080. These cards gave the consumer GPU market hardware capabilities for AI processing (Tensor cores) and real-time ray tracing (RT cores).
- RTX 30 Series: The second generation of RTX GPUs is represented by the RTX 30 series, which is based on the Ampere architecture. The RTX 3060, RTX 3070, RTX 3080, and the flagship RTX 3090 are all part of this series. Some models also come in Ti and Super versions. Ray tracing and AI processing capabilities are further enhanced by the 30 series, which offers notable performance gains over the 20 series. The RTX 3090 is distinguished in particular by its enormous 24GB of GDDR6X memory, which qualifies it for both demanding business workloads and top-tier gaming.
The RTX platform’s core capabilities, like as real-time ray tracing, DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling), and enhanced shading methods, are generally supported by all GPUs in the RTX series. However, due to variations in the number of cores, memory capacity and speed, and other variables, performance differs between models. A user’s demands and budget will determine the precise model that is suitable for them.
The Nvidia RTX's Hardware
The NVIDIA RTX platform is driven by cutting-edge GPU architectures that include numerous essential hardware elements intended to support real-time AI computing and ray tracing. Here is a quick summary of the key hardware components:
- GPU Cores: The Turing or Ampere architecture, which is made up of several CUDA cores (sometimes referred to as stream processors), is the basis for the RTX GPUs. These cores are used to carry out the fundamental computational operations necessary for generating visuals, such as running shader programs. They are able to do several computations at once thanks to their parallelism, which improves overall speed.
- Ray Tracing (RT) : cores are one of the RTX platform’s most significant advances. These specialized hardware components speed up the ray tracing procedure. Ray tracing is a method of producing graphics that simulates the actual behavior of light to produce images that are more lifelike. It requires a lot of calculation, though. By expediting the calculations required, such bounding box tests and ray-triangle intersection tests, RT cores enable ray tracing to be done in real time.
- Tensor Cores: RTX GPUs also come with this sort of specialized technology. They are made to carry out tensor operations, the sort of computations needed in deep learning and artificial intelligence. Tensor Cores are employed in the context of graphics for functions like Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS), which employs AI to instantly upgrade lower-resolution photos while keeping excellent visual quality.
- Memory: The GDDR6 or GDDR6X memory used in RTX GPUs is quicker than the GDDR5 memory found in many GPUs from earlier generations. As the GPU must quickly access and store data like textures, geometry, and frame buffers, having fast memory is crucial for speed.
- Board and Power Design: The GPU card’s physical design, which includes its cooling and power delivery systems, is also essential for performance. High-end RTX versions frequently use cutting-edge cooling systems to keep the GPU functioning effectively under stress.
- Higher-end RTX cards come with NVLink as well, a high-speed connector that enhances communication across several GPUs. This is crucial in situations like offices and data centers, where multi-GPU systems are typical.
The RTX platform also uses software tools like the DLSS AI model and the NVIDIA RTX ray tracing API in addition to these hardware components. The RTX platform’s hardware and software components work together to produce real-time graphics at a new level of performance and visual realism.
2000 Series RTX
Graphics processing units (GPUs) in the NVIDIA RTX 2000 series, commonly referred to as the RTX 20 series, were originally introduced in August 2018. Because it gave consumer GPUs their first exposure to real-time ray tracing and AI capabilities, this series represented a significant advancement in graphics technology.
Here is a quick rundown of the main RTX 20 series models:
- The entry-level model in the RTX 20 series is the RTX 2060. It is a mid-range GPU that performs well for gaming at 1080p and 1440p resolutions. Real-time ray tracing, DLSS, and 6GB of GDDR6 RAM are all supported by the RTX 2060.
- A step up from the RTX 2060, the RTX 2070 has higher performance and additional memory (8GB of GDDR6). It can handle 4K gaming at low settings and offer outstanding performance for 1440p games.
- RTX 2080: The RTX 2080 is a top-tier GPU with great 1440p and 4K gaming performance. With 8GB of GDDR6 memory, it offers a significant performance improvement over the RTX 2070.
- The flagship model of the RTX 20 series is the RTX 2080 Ti. It is one of the most potent consumer GPUs on the market and provides excellent 4K gaming performance. 11GB of GDDR6 memory are available on the RTX 2080 Ti.
NVIDIA also offered “Super” versions of the RTX 2060, 2070, and 2080 in addition to these models. These cards, which significantly outperform the normal versions, occasionally come with additional memory as well.
Real-time ray tracing and DLSS are two essential RTX platform capabilities that are supported by every GPU in the RTX 20 series. They are built using NVIDIA’s Turing architecture and have hardware cores designed specifically for ray tracing and AI processing (Tensor cores).
Professional Workstations With Nvidia RTX
NVIDIA’s RTX technology has important uses outside of gaming, including on professional workstations where fast visuals are necessary. Here are some examples of how RTX technology is applied in business settings:
- 3D modeling and design: 3D models are crucial in fields including product design, engineering, and architecture. Complex 3D models may be easily handled by NVIDIA RTX GPUs, enabling fluid manipulation and viewing. Professionals may also witness more realistic lighting and material effects immediately in the viewport with real-time ray tracing rather than having to wait for lengthy renderings.
2.Rendering: From animation and VFX to architectural visualization, high-quality rendering is essential in many sectors. Particularly when employing render engines that support RTX’s ray-tracing features, RTX GPUs dramatically accelerate rendering processes. As a result, tasks that once required hours may now just need a few minutes.
3.Video Editing and Color Grading: Real-time effects and better timeline scrubbing are made possible by RTX GPUs’ superior performance in video editing applications. Additionally, they can easily handle 4K, 8K, and even higher-resolution footage due to their ample quantities of VRAM.
4.Applications for virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) that give seamless, immersive experiences need require high-performance graphics. These demanding applications may be powered by RTX GPUs, especially higher-end versions, making them appropriate for professional VR/AR tasks like virtual tours or VR design evaluations.
5.AI and machine learning: RTX GPUs’ Tensor Cores are intended to speed up AI workloads. This makes them suitable for a variety of AI and machine learning applications, from running AI-powered software tools to training neural networks.
6.Scientific data visualization and computation: GPUs are frequently employed in scientific research for calculations and data visualization. With the help of CUDA and other GPGPU (general-purpose computing on graphics processing units) frameworks, RTX GPUs, which are potent computation devices, may accelerate a variety of scientific computing workloads.
NVIDIA provides a series of Quadro RTX-based GPUs for professionals, including the Quadro RTX 8000, RTX 6000, and RTX 5000. Similar to its GeForce cousins, but with features like ECC memory and approved drivers for business software, these GPUs are made exclusively for professional applications. To better highlight the RTX technology in professional GPUs, NVIDIA has already begun changing the Quadro branding to NVIDIA RTX A-series as of my knowledge cut-off in September 2021.
The Nvidia RTX Future
NVIDIA has continued to innovate and push the limits of what is feasible with graphics technology as of my knowledge cutoff in September 2021. There are a few areas where we could anticipate advancement based on existing patterns, even if specifics regarding upcoming advances in the RTX platform are sometimes well kept secrets until formal announcements are made:
- Higher Performance: As new GPU designs are created, we may anticipate future RTX GPUs to provide even higher performance than existing models. This is a given in the world of technology. This might be accomplished by adding more CUDA cores, increasing clock rates, using more effective designs, or making other advancements.
- Ray Tracing Improvements: As NVIDIA’s RTX technology develops and gains more traction, we may anticipate additional improvements in real-time ray tracing. Future RTX GPUs may offer greater hardware support, more robust ray tracing effects support in games and other applications, and more effective ray tracing algorithms.
- AI Enhancements: With technologies like DLSS and AI denoising, NVIDIA has integrated AI as a crucial component into the RTX platform. We could see more advancements to these AI capabilities in the future, as well as brand-new AI-driven features that boost graphics performance or visual quality.
- More Memory: Future RTX GPUs could come equipped with bigger memory capacities as video games and professional applications continue to require more VRAM. Additionally, advances in memory technology, such as quicker memory access times or more effective memory designs, could go hand in hand with this.
- Better Software and APIs: NVIDIA is anticipated to keep improving its software tools and APIs that enable the RTX platform in addition to the hardware upgrades. This may involve new or enhanced APIs for ray tracing and AI, as well as better game developer tools.
- Support for New Display Technologies: Future RTX GPUs are anticipated to offer support for new display technologies as they develop, including higher-resolution screens, faster refresh rates, and new virtual reality or augmented reality technologies.
- More Energy Efficiency: Future generations of RTX GPUs will probably concentrate on offering higher performance per watt, enabling formidable processing skills with less energy use as power consumption becomes an increasingly critical factor.
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