Stream Processors....higher the better?

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retardude48

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I will be upgrading my video card soon and I noticed a big difference in the stream processors between Nvidia and ATI. So, the questions begs to be asked....how does the performance of a card correlate to the number of stream processors it has?

Thinking about upgrading to 9800GX2 or the GTX 260. On the ATI side, the 4850.
 
Stream processors don't say much about the performance of a card anymore. ATI had 800 I believe, but it doesn't give them much better performance. Personally I wouldn't look at the stream processors but at the performance of a card as a whole. Both AMD and Nvidia have taken a different approach regarding design to achieve the same results.


The 9800GX2 is a good card but personally I always prefer a single-GPU solution. The GTX 260 is also a good card, however as a comparison I think you mean the 4870 instead of the 4850. The 4870 is on an equal level (until perhaps the improved GTX 260 version comes soon) with the 260 GTX. The 4850 falls in a lower class, comparable with the Nvidia 9800 GTX.
 
I would avoid the 9800GX2, there is a reason they are having to drop the prices so fast for them. The 4850 is the low end on that list, a 4870 or GTX260 are about on par depending on how you rate them. As you already have an SLI motherboard I would go with the GTX260.
 
What Treeckcold57 is saying is that AMD's definition of a SP is different from NV's. For AMD, each Shader Core has 5 Shader Processors. With NV's architecture, a Shader Processor is somewhat analogous to AMD's Shader Cores. So in a way, you could take RV770's 800 SPs and divide by 5 to get a number that would be useful in comparison to NV's SPs. However from benchmarks you'll see that this comparison still isn't terribly accurate.

Worse yet, of course, is that dual-GPU products tend to be marketed as if they really have 256SPs or 1600SPs. While technically true, it's horrendously misleading. Same with available memory on dual-GPU products.
 
I'd second the recommendation of the GTX280. Just got mine (eVGA Superclocked) - and it runs great. At 60% fan speed, it idles at 48C, and loads at 74C if I run RTHDRIBL for 30 minutes or so on the highest settings. Cranking the fan to 70% lowers the load temps to just below 70C for me. The thing is a furnace no matter what, but seems to do fine.

I need to install oblivion tonight. :D
 
I wouldn't compare the 260 to the 4850. Roughly the cards are as such 4850 < 260 = 4870 < 280 < 4870x2. You can come up with all kinds of particular situations where a given card may shine but in general that's how it goes.

As for which, I dunno, depends on your money. With a 22" I'd think a 4850 should do just fine and a 260 or 4870 would just be awesome. A 280 would probably be overkill. I have one with a 26" monitor and it is still pretty much overkill.
 
Sycraft said:
I wouldn't compare the 260 to the 4850. Roughly the cards are as such 4850 < 260 = 4870 < 280 < 4870x2. You can come up with all kinds of particular situations where a given card may shine but in general that's how it goes.

As for which, I dunno, depends on your money. With a 22" I'd think a 4850 should do just fine and a 260 or 4870 would just be awesome. A 280 would probably be overkill. I have one with a 26" monitor and it is still pretty much overkill.
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now that Clear Sky is out, a GTX280 and especially a 4870 are certainly not overkill at 1680 anymore. of course thats provided you have a very good cpu to keep that card happy.
 
cannondale06 said:
now that Clear Sky is out, a GTX280 and especially a 4870 are certainly not overkill at 1680 anymore. of course thats provided you have a very good cpu to keep that card happy.
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Very true, had a friend who had this problem and he switched to an E8400 and bottlenecking problems were solved with his 4850.

Im looking at picking up a GTX 260. Recently, deals have gotten to around ~$140-$170 dollars for the 192SP. I dont mind if it will drop the price down significantly, with a little improvements in FPS. Any concerns over the 192SP?
 
retardude48 said:
Im looking at picking up a GTX 260. Recently, deals have gotten to around ~$140-$170 dollars for the 192SP. I dont mind if it will drop the price down significantly, with a little improvements in FPS. Any concerns over the 192SP?
Click to expand...

Wow....where did you see that price range? US$170 for a GTX260?
 
rampantandroid said:
I'd second the recommendation of the GTX280. Just got mine (eVGA Superclocked) - and it runs great. At 60% fan speed, it idles at 48C, and loads at 74C if I run RTHDRIBL for 30 minutes or so on the highest settings. Cranking the fan to 70% lowers the load temps to just below 70C for me. The thing is a furnace no matter what, but seems to do fine.

I need to install oblivion tonight. :D
Click to expand...

I am liking mine as well. but as he has a SLI board already he could for about the same money get two GTX260. That makes in difficult to recommend the GTX280, unless he wants two :D
 
Cliff Couser said:
Wow....where did you see that price range? US$170 for a GTX260?
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Check on fatwallet regularly. Recently, since they were getting rid of the old stock, they put them out for cheap. Here are some links but deals are already dead.
http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/hot-deals/860811
http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/hot-deals/857157
http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/expired-deals/856647

Valset said:
I am liking mine as well. but as he has a SLI board already he could for about the same money get two GTX260. That makes in difficult to recommend the GTX280, unless he wants two :D
Click to expand...

Well, I am planning on getting rid of this board....dont like nvidia chipsets. I dont plan on sli-ing but if i get a gtx 260 now, later on down the road, this card will be cheap and I may consider sli-ing.
 
you can't really tell perfomance by how many stream processor but in case of same clock and technology, most importantly same architecture, ofcourse the higher the better.
 
AMD and NVIDIA obviously have a very different design for their streaming processors.

After all, the 4870 has 800 of them, and the new 260 has 216, and the new 260 is faster all around.

Clearly, there is a big difference between what AMD calls a streaming processor, and what NVIDIA calls a streaming processor.
 
I know the first two deals are legit b/c I saw the those prices on website but didnt end up pulling the trigger b/c of the fact that other retailers may get rid of their inventory and may sell it for cheaper.
 
I saw at least the ZZF deal too, the guy on FW who posted it was pretty much the only one who claimed it shipped for him IIRC. :p
 
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