Nvidia offers UK customers test drive of Grid virtual GPU technology

Nvidia offers free 24-hour test drive of Grid technology for accelerated graphics in virtualised environments

Nvidia is now offering UK users the chance to try out its Grid technology, which brings GPU acceleration to cloud-based applications and services such as virtual desktops and games.

The Nvidia test drive site is available now across the UK, China, Taiwan and North America. It enables potential customers to sign up for a free 24-hour online trial in order to get hands-on experience of the technology, and how it can deliver a better experience for remote desktops and applications, as well as run graphics-rich applications in a virtualised environment.

Nvidia's Grid GPUs are based on the firm's Kepler GPU architecture, but the acceleration capabilities are virtualised so they can be shared between multiple users or virtual machines. This architecture makes it possible for users to have GPU acceleration for virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) sessions, making it possible to run more demanding applications this way.

Andrew Cresci, Nvidia's general manager for Cloud and Virtualisation, said: "IT professionals know that virtualised graphics are key to VDI's success and increased implementation moving forward. Now they can easily experience Nvidia Grid's performance and reliability via the first ever online trial of its kind."

Cresci said that Grid is "experiencing strong customer adoption and engagement among OEM and ISV partners including HP, Dell, Citrix, VMware and Microsoft," and that the new Test Drive site enables potential users to try it out without first having to build a proof-of-concept private cloud.

Nvidia's Grid technology is also supported by Amazon Web Services (AWS) for some of its virtual machine instances.

Interested users need to register in order to access the secure Nvidia Test Drive site. In addition to using a selection of pre-installed applications, users can install and evaluate their own applications, Nvidia said. Currently, the Grid Test Drive is available on Windows. A version for Mac OS and Linux is set to be available soon.