Term of the Moment
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Definition: NVLink
(NVIDIALINK) A high-speed interface between CPU and GPU chips from NVIDIA. NVLink offers much faster data transfer than the commonly used PCIe bus (PCI Express). Introduced in 2014, each NVlink path is eight bidirectional channels, and up to 18 NVLinks between chips provide 144 lanes of simultaneous traffic. In 2024, data rates between chips using the maximum NVLink configuration have reached 900 gigabytes per second. See NVIDIA Grace Hopper Superchip.
NVSwitch
Whereas NVLink is a GPU-to-GPU connection, NVSwitch provides the switching fabric so that data can be transferred from any GPU to any other. NVSwitch can support up to 256 H100 GPUs communicating via NVLink. See H100.
NVLink Connections
NVSwitch
Whereas NVLink is a GPU-to-GPU connection, NVSwitch provides the switching fabric so that data can be transferred from any GPU to any other. NVSwitch can support up to 256 H100 GPUs communicating via NVLink. See H100.
PCI Express can be eliminated entirely when NVLink is used from CPU to GPU. Although multiple NVLinks are used between chips, eight channels of one NVLink are diagrammed here. PCIe can also be configured as a multi-lane bus but is considerably slower than NVLink deployments. See PCI Express.