G94 chip, same frequencies 48 SP vs 64 SP Opinions?

[L1qu1d]

Quick opinionated question.

How much of a performance hit would 48 SP vs 64 SP be on the same card?

I've always been curious, and I never saw any direct comparisons, since no card used 48 SP until Nvidia's famous 9600 GSO 512 revision SP 64 and increased bus width from 128/196 bit to 256 bit.

any ideas?

 

[EXT64]

I don't know, I guess it depends on what really is holding the card back. I remember I OC'ed my IGP from 500 to 900 MHz but saw little increase in 3D Mark score since that was memory bound. Could be a similar case if some part of the 64 SP card was limiting it so the SP drop wouldn't hurt it (as much). I certainly don't know the true answer though.

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

Yep it depends on where the stress is. Does the game app stress the texture load or the ROPs and not the shaders? Then increased bandwidth to the back end might improve or maintain performance while the front end isn't really that stressed or may shift equal 'bottlenecking to the front of the pipeline that used to be in the back end.

It won't be universal it would be something that you would need to look at on a case to case basis, but IMO I doubt the increase in bandwidth would make up for the loss of shader power because it would be rare to see a situation where just memory bandwidth alone would help and not be equally hurt by a loss of shader power (usually something require that level of bandwidth is accompanied by a heavy shader load too).

 

[L1qu1d]

perfect exactly the answer I was looking for from both of you, Thank you very very much