ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2 - Fastest Yet!

Introduction

3D is intrinsically parallel. We find parallelism at the level at which data is manipulated (4 component vector), but also with the instructions applied to that data. GPU manufacturers have understood that fact well and it's around this main idea (which constitutes the main difference between graphics and CPUs) that 3D chips are built.

Geometry Engine

Raster Manager

Display Generator

It could be set up using multiple configurations and it was even possible to add cards to increase workstation performances. The Rasterization diagram is complex and aims to intelligently balance the workload, either between the 80 image engines of each Raster Manager, or the different Raster Managers. To do so, it operates using tiles that vary in size depending on the number of Raster Manager.

Join our discussion on this article!