Nvidia Corp. on Tuesday introduced the industry's first visual computing appliance, which allows to deliver ultra-fast GPU performance to any Windows, Linux or Mac client on a corporate network.

"Nvidia Grid VCA is the first product to provide businesses with convenient, on-demand visual computing. Design firms, film studios and other businesses can now give their creative teams access to graphics-intensive applications with uncompromised performance, flexibility and simplicity," said Jen-Hsun Huang, co-founder and chief executive officer of Nvidia.

The Nvidia Grid visual computing appliance (VCA) is a powerful GPU-based system that runs complex applications such as those from Adobe Systems, Autodesk and Dassault Systèmes, and sends their graphics output over the network to be displayed on a client computer. This remote GPU acceleration gives users the same rich graphics experience they would get from an expensive, dedicated PC under their desk.

Nvidia Grid VCA provides flexibility to small and medium-size businesses with limited IT infrastructures. Their employees can, through the simple click of an icon, create a virtual machine called a workspace. These workspaces – which are, effectively, dedicated, high-performance GPU-based systems – can be added, deleted or reallocated as needed.

^{Nvidia's chief executive officer Jen-Hsun Huang introduces Grid VCA at GTC 2013}

Nvidia Grid VCA is an easy-to-install, easy-to-manage 4U appliance. Its 16 Nvidia GPUs and Nvidia Grid VGX software provide Nvidia Quadro-class graphics performance for up to 16 concurrent users, with low latency, high resolution and maximum interactivity for unparalleled quality of service.

Available in the United States in May from authorized value-added resellers, Nvidia Grid VCA is offered in two configurations:

• 16 threads (one Intel Xeon eight-core chip with HyperThreading or two Intel Xeon quad-core chips with HT), 192GB DDR3 memory, 8 GPUs, 32GB GDDR5 memory microprocessors. Price: $24900, plus an annual software license of $2400
• 32 threads (two Intel Xeon eight-core chips with HyperThreading), 384GB DDR3 memory, 16 GPUs, 64GB GDDR5 memory microprocessors. Price: $39900, plus an annual software license of $4800

Tags: Nvidia, Grid, Geforce, Quadro, Tesla, Kepler