Streaming Processor!!

[kabir_sharif2000]

It seems like all the hard work is done by these Streaming Processors?

Then how come nVidia got so little of those while Ati has so much?

What is actually the secret? Anybody bothers to explain? What is the biggest difference between nVidia and Ati GPUs?

[CHR.Satiator]

Stream processors, Temperature, Longivity.. lol etc..

[CvP]

from wiki:

Stream processing is a computer programming paradigm, related to SIMD, that allows some applications to more easily exploit a limited form of parallel processing. Such applications can use multiple computational units, such as the floating point units on a GPU, without explicitly managing allocation, synchronization, or communication among those units.
The stream processing paradigm simplifies parallel software and hardware by restricting the parallel computation that can be performed.

in other words, you do parallel computing without implementing all the complexity of parallel computing. this of course, leaves some room for more performance.

and it is the base of GPGPU

A new concept is to use a modified form of a stream processor to allow a general purpose graphics processing unit. This concept turns the massive floating-point computational power of a modern graphics accelerator's shader pipeline into general-purpose computing power, as opposed to being hard wired solely to do graphical operations. In certain applications requiring massive vector operations, this can yield several orders of magnitude higher performance than a conventional CPU

anyways, afaik, ATi's technology is better than nVidia but nVidia wins with raw power (usually).

[Mazhar]

in very simple words, think of a shader as a very simple processor.

now, in their latest GTX280 GPU, nvidia has 240 simple shaders which can do 2 operations per clock, hence the total number of operations per clock is 480. the shaders are clocked at 1300mhz, giving a total theoretical performance of 933 gigaflops

ATI, in their latest 4870 GPU, has 160 complex shaders which do 5 operations per clock. hence, the total number of operations per clock is 800, and ATI prefers to call this the number of streaming processors. they operate at a speed of 750mhz giving a total theoretical performance of 1200 gigaflops

so ATI basically wins in terms of war performance and they also have better techonlogy, since the HD4870 die size (the size of the chip, which is one of the most important economic factors) is around half of the GTX280 die size. however, the GTX280 usually performs better because games nowadays are not yet shader bound that much, and texture fillrate is higher in the GTX280. also, nvidia pays money to game developers to code their game engines to work better on their GPU's. you dont see "The way its meant to be played" logo for no reason

[Uchiha Obito]

Perfectly explained Mazhar

[kabir_sharif2000]

in very simple words, think of a shader as a very simple processor.

now, in their latest GTX280 GPU, nvidia has 240 simple shaders which can do 2 operations per clock, hence the total number of operations per clock is 480. the shaders are clocked at 1300mhz, giving a total theoretical performance of 933 gigaflops

ATI, in their latest 4870 GPU, has 160 complex shaders which do 5 operations per clock. hence, the total number of operations per clock is 800, and ATI prefers to call this the number of streaming processors. they operate at a speed of 750mhz giving a total theoretical performance of 1200 gigaflops

so ATI basically wins in terms of war performance and they also have better techonlogy, since the HD4870 die size (the size of the chip, which is one of the most important economic factors) is around half of the GTX280 die size. however, the GTX280 usually performs better because games nowadays are not yet shader bound that much, and texture fillrate is higher in the GTX280. also, nvidia pays money to game developers to code their game engines to work better on their GPU's. you dont see "The way its meant to be played" logo for no reason

So in the end, is it like having a Ferari in Bangladesh where there is no road to enjoy driving it?? Are not we better of with some BMWs? I mean, is it that i have way better technology with Ati which is actually slow because there is no game to use them yet fully?

how about the mid range cards? then? Like 8800 GT?

and Low mid range cards Like 9600 GT?

[One more post plz.. plz..]

[CvP]

well, it is the mid range car(ds) where you get the best things.
in mid range, you will see ATi performing a lot better because nV cant
keep up the fillrate that much and you know what that means.

[coldfire7]

So in the end, is it like having a Ferari in Bangladesh where there is no road to enjoy driving it?? Are not we better of with some BMWs? I mean, is it that i have way better technology with Ati which is actually slow because there is no game to use them yet fully?

how about the mid range cards? then? Like 8800 GT?

and Low mid range cards Like 9600 GT?

[One more post plz.. plz..]

Wait for the new game... new games will use those tech. properly... like FarCry 2....

[Mazhar]

So in the end, is it like having a Ferari in Bangladesh where there is no road to enjoy driving it?? Are not we better of with some BMWs? I mean, is it that i have way better technology with Ati which is actually slow because there is no game to use them yet fully?

how about the mid range cards? then? Like 8800 GT?

and Low mid range cards Like 9600 GT?

[One more post plz.. plz..]

Not exactly, its like you have, say, a porsche 911 GT2 in which you can only floor the throttle in the jamuna straight (ie. in only a few games, which properly utilize the rv770 architecture, it performs brilliantly, like GRID)

However, what you should keep in mind is that it doesnt really mean that the ATI architecture performs poorly in other games, its about on par with its directly competing nvidia card in the mid-high range (4870 vs GTX260)

Now about midrange cards, they would be the 8800GT/9600GT vs the HD3870. In that generation, ATI had a bit of a performance problem with antialiasing enabled (the shader performance took a hit) and the architecture was too texture fillrate bound hence could not really match the 8800GT, but was about equal/slightly better in performance compared to the 9600GT. ATI does not have a newer generation directly competing card to the 8800GT, since the 4850 is one class above, but the 4830 would be released and shouldnt be that much more expensive than the 8800GT, and it should easily outperform the 8800GT and have better future potential

In the end, dont expect miracles in the future with the ATI architecture since there are other limiting factors except shader horsepower too, like texture fillrate where nvidia is slightly better. But ATI's architecture does have better potential in the future, since slowly more games will start to be shader bound and not texture. So in the future games, when the ATI architecture is used more efficiently, it should widen the performance gap compared to its competing card from nvidia

Let me remind you once again, your ATI is not sucking at the current games, its just that it will perform better in the future

[kabir_sharif2000]

Tanx guys. I got all i need. I was looking forward to one more post of Mazhar, now i got it. Thats all i needed.

@mods

Thread can be closed, if you want.