Scientists at Los Alamos have developed a coding language to be executed on modern computer graphics cards , which allows them to perform mathmatical functions like a CPU does, but many times faster .
Even low end cheap graphics cards eg. your average Geforce 5200 has a processor faster than most modern CPUs and video ram running at or faster than DDR 400 speed , so a well coded program will process data faster than your CPU , this has interesting implications , people can re-compile programs that normally kill even high end PCS to run on a video card, effectivly making it a 2nd processor , allowing you to multi task with your CPU much easier .
With high end graphics cards like the Geforce 6800 or Radeon x800 coming equipped with 512mb of RAM and bieng able to run in configurations with 2 or 4 graphics processors in the same PC , scientist may no longer need to rent / buy massive super computers to test their theories or process data from experiments , they can just buy or build a gaming system for 2000 US or so , instead of several 10 000 + supercomputers to do the same job at the same speed , the only problem would be that programmers will have to learn a new language , which would take a few days to weeks , but the advantages will most likely outweigh the disadvantages .
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7508 this is also an excuse to spend a whole pile of money on a video card...... and tell your boss it will increase your performance
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