Nvidia Corp. has unveiled its new professional graphics accelerator aimed at designers and creative professionals. The new Quadro CX accelerates such applications as Adobe Photoshop CS4, After Effects CS4 and Premiere Pro CS4 with the help of OpenGL as well as computer unified device architecture (CUDA) Nvidia’s proprietary technology.

According to Nvidia, through the help of OpenGL, its Quadro CX graphics processing unit enables real-time image rotation, zooming, and panning, and makes changes to the view instantaneous and smooth. Adobe Photoshop CS4 also taps the GPU for on-screen compositing of both 2D and 3D content, ensuring smoothly anti-aliased results regardless of zoom level. Brush resizing and brushstroke preview, 3D movement, high-dynamic-range tone mapping, and color conversion are also accelerated by the GPU.

Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 can take advantage of Quadro CX to accelerate high-quality video effects such as motion, opacity, color, and image distortion using CUDA parallel computing technology. Quadro CX also enables faster editing of multiple high-definition video streams and graphic overlays and provides a variety of video output choices for high-quality preview, including DisplayPort, component TV, or uncompressed 10-bit or 12-bit SDI (if an add-on card is present). The software suite utilizes RapiHD engine from Elemental Technologies to encode H.264/MPEG4 AVC video.

Adobe After Effects CS4 has added optimization features to accelerate a variety of creative effects, making it easier than ever to add graphics and visual effects to video, which allows the artist to quickly move from concept to final product and speeds up the workflow. Effects accelerated include depth of field, bilateral blur effects, turbulent noise such as flowing water or waving flags, and cartoon effects.

It is not completely clear which GPU does the Quadro CX graphics card use, but it is hardly likely that the novelty sports a GeForce GTX 200-series processor (GT200/G200/NV55) with 192 stream processing units that features rather strange render back-end/memory controller configuration and utilizes 384-bit memory bus to connect 1.5GB of onboard memory. The novelty comes with dual-link DVI, DisplayPort and stereo outputs. As all Quadro products for creative professionals, the Quadro CX supports 32x maximum FSAA mode.

Nvidia Quadro CX is already available from leading resellers, e-tailers, and retailers, for $1999.

Tags: Nvidia, Quadro