Stream processors?

[dearharlequin]

What's the benefit of ati's 4800's having more stream processors than nvidia's cards?

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

What's the benefit of ati's 4800's having more stream processors than nvidia's cards?

More math. [:thegreatgrapeape:6]

 

[copasetic]

It basically means they have the potential for more processing power than the GTX200's, but to take advantage of it games need to be optimized for the 4800 series. Bioshock is an example of a game that does this just because of the way it was written, and in reviews the 4870 outperforms the GTX280 in Bioshock by quite a bit.

Here's a more technical article on the differences between Nvidia and ATI's architecture:

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3341&p=3

 

[dearharlequin]

great article, copasetic.

does anybody have a take on which cards will perform better in the future?

 

[romulus47plus1]

Imagine having 1000000 Persians against 300 Spartans.
They Spartans gave a bloody hell of a fight didn't they?

 

[copasetic]

does anybody have a take on which cards will perform better in the future?

I'd have to go with the 4800's. Like I said they have the potential to outperform the GTX280. The 4870 can (theoretically) reach 1.2 teraflops, while the GTX280 is limited to 0.96 or so. This is solely because the 4870's stream processors can run 5 instructions at once (there's an explanation of this part on page 6 of that article), so if future games are written to take advantage of this they'll see a pretty big performance boost on the 4800 series cards. But that's an if, because historically games have been optimized for Nvidia cards instead ("The way it's meant to be played").

Then there's DirectX10.1, which so far is only available on ATI's 3800 and 4800 series and sees a pretty big performance increase over Nvidia's cards when AA is turned on. A single 4870 beats the 280 at 2650x1600 with 4x AA in Assassins Creed because of the DX10.1 advantages.

Micro stuttering also seems to be fixed in the 4870X2, though it hasn't been confirmed yet. If it's true then that'll be one hell of a card.

And last someone has managed to port Nvidia's PhysX to ATI cards, so ATI cards could run both Havok and PhysX, though not officially.

 

[FrozenGpu]

Imagine having 1000000 Persians against 300 Spartans.
They Spartans gave a bloody hell of a fight didn't they?

I loved the movie 300, but technically speaking that 1 million number is only rumored as they were never actually able to prove that.

They do say that the p[Persians had huge amounts of infrastructure, but they were in no way all warriors...probably less than half.

Not trying to take away the glory of 300 soldiers duking it out with half a million or so, but you know how history is, it is written by the winners, so take everything w/ a grain of salt....

 

[marvelous211]

I loved the movie 300, but technically speaking that 1 million number is only rumored as they were never actually able to prove that.

They do say that the p[Persians had huge amounts of infrastructure, but they were in no way all warriors...probably less than half.

Not trying to take away the glory of 300 soldiers duking it out with half a million or so, but you know how history is, it is written by the winners, so take everything w/ a grain of salt....

It's fairy tale at best. 1 million vs 300? Even if 300 had modern day weapons and the 1 million had sticks and stones. I'm willing to bet on 1 million persians with sticks and stones.

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

does anybody have a take on which cards will perform better in the future?

Both.

They play to different strengths, and there is none that is simply better.

In some titles one will do better in others the other will do better because it's not just stream processor numbers, it's also their composition, their function subset; and then it's not just stream processors but texture units, and other items.

So just like right now, they will trade blows depending on the app and what it benefits from / focuses on in each architecture.

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

Then there's DirectX10.1, which so far is only available on ATI's 3800 and 4800 series

Actually S3's cards are also DX10.1

 

[FrozenGpu]

It's fairy tale at best. 1 million vs 300? Even if 300 had modern day weapons and the 1 million had sticks and stones. I'm willing to bet on 1 million persians with sticks and stones.

see that's what I pretty much believe, still love the movie though as it plays into the idea that you should be all you can possibly be, regardless of what others think, but in the end you know it is more fairy tale-ish than anything else.

As to what greatgrapeape was saying, I still have laying around a few S3 virge cards, man I missed those days, when it was cool to see what a card like that would do in a game like retribution or descent.

 

[copasetic]

I didn't even know S3 is still around

 

[romulus47plus1]

I think nVidia is like 240 spartans and AMD/ATI is like 800 if those elite Persians. Even if nVidia had won, they won by just a little.

 

[FrozenGpu]

I think nVidia is like 240 spartans and AMD/ATI is like 800 if those elite Persians. Even if nVidia had won, they won by just a little.

technically its like the 160 (800/5) of those ati SP whoa re like the spartans, and the 24 are the elitistesedinger Persians! B/c the Spartans do end up loosing that pass in the mountains, but at an amazing efficiency rate!