Pipeline in graphics card
- Thread starter Sickamore
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happy medium
Lifer
- Jun 8, 2003
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pipelines as in the 6800 series?
I don't think pipelines are used in modern grapics cards.
Every image you see on a screen is made up of thousands of pixels. A pixel is a single point within an image, and is normally capable of displaying either three colours (red, green, blue) or four colours (cyan, yellow, magenta, black). Pixels are associated with the screen resolution of your display, so if you were to play a game at a common resolution such as 1280x1024, your display would show 1280 pixels across the screen, and 1024 pixels from top to bottom.
The pixel pipeline processes the pixel, texture and geometric data received from the Vertex Shaders. Different GPUs (Graphics Processing Unit) have different numbers of pixel pipelines, but as a rule of thumb, the more pipelines a graphics card has, the faster the card can process the data for rendering the images on-screen.
Each pixel is made up of a series of fragments, which are processed by the pixel shader according to calculations made by the vertex shader. Once each fragment is processed it is held in a buffer where it is built into a complete pixel by the Raster Operator unit.
Pixel shading is usually the most intensive part of the graphics rendering process on a modern GPU and so usually takes the most time.
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-are-video-card-pipelines.htm
I don't think pipelines are used in modern grapics cards.
Every image you see on a screen is made up of thousands of pixels. A pixel is a single point within an image, and is normally capable of displaying either three colours (red, green, blue) or four colours (cyan, yellow, magenta, black). Pixels are associated with the screen resolution of your display, so if you were to play a game at a common resolution such as 1280x1024, your display would show 1280 pixels across the screen, and 1024 pixels from top to bottom.
The pixel pipeline processes the pixel, texture and geometric data received from the Vertex Shaders. Different GPUs (Graphics Processing Unit) have different numbers of pixel pipelines, but as a rule of thumb, the more pipelines a graphics card has, the faster the card can process the data for rendering the images on-screen.
Each pixel is made up of a series of fragments, which are processed by the pixel shader according to calculations made by the vertex shader. Once each fragment is processed it is held in a buffer where it is built into a complete pixel by the Raster Operator unit.
Pixel shading is usually the most intensive part of the graphics rendering process on a modern GPU and so usually takes the most time.
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-are-video-card-pipelines.htm
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Pipeline is an antiquated term to describe graphics architectures now since stream processors were introduced.
In older graphics cards, the pipelines were set to do fixed functions on a given pixel (either vertex shading or pixel shading). In a game which required a lot of vertex shading power, large parts of the chip might sit idle since they could not handle that part of the workload.
Stream processors are able to perform different operations on the fly, so it doesn't matter whether vertex, pixel or geometry processing needs to be done, since modern graphics cards have a unified shader architecture (the SPs can do any job you need them to do) which increases the efficiency of the chip.
Problem is that nV and ATi SPs work a bit differently. If ATi card A has more SPs than ATi card B, ATi card A will probably be the better performer and ditto for comparisons between nV cards - but comparing ATi numbers to nV numbers doesn't work (e.g the GTX 480 has 480 SPs and the HD 5870 has 1600 SPs but the 480 is faster).
In older graphics cards, the pipelines were set to do fixed functions on a given pixel (either vertex shading or pixel shading). In a game which required a lot of vertex shading power, large parts of the chip might sit idle since they could not handle that part of the workload.
Stream processors are able to perform different operations on the fly, so it doesn't matter whether vertex, pixel or geometry processing needs to be done, since modern graphics cards have a unified shader architecture (the SPs can do any job you need them to do) which increases the efficiency of the chip.
Problem is that nV and ATi SPs work a bit differently. If ATi card A has more SPs than ATi card B, ATi card A will probably be the better performer and ditto for comparisons between nV cards - but comparing ATi numbers to nV numbers doesn't work (e.g the GTX 480 has 480 SPs and the HD 5870 has 1600 SPs but the 480 is faster).
happy medium
Lifer
- Jun 8, 2003
- 14,387
- 480
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I would forget about stream processors/CUDA cores/ROPs/clusters and all of that mumbo jumbo.
All you need to do is pick the fastest card in your budget, at your resolution, in the games that you play/are going to play.
Review sites like Anandtech should break all of this down for you, comparing cards in all price ranges, across multiple games, and different monitor resolutions.
All you need to do is pick the fastest card in your budget, at your resolution, in the games that you play/are going to play.
Review sites like Anandtech should break all of this down for you, comparing cards in all price ranges, across multiple games, and different monitor resolutions.
- Aug 10, 2010
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Money budget I am not worried about. I am building this toy for the fun of knowledge base,gaming and workstation. I Just want to know which specs to look for so I can spend right. I am looking to run two 5850 or for now a ASUS EAH 5870. Should I wait because 6000 series will be out soon. That way the price of the cards will go down.
happy medium
Lifer
- Jun 8, 2003
- 14,387
- 480
- 126
happy medium
Lifer
- Jun 8, 2003
- 14,387
- 480
- 126
ATI is supposed to announce new cards in Oct. nVidia is still trying to get the rest of their current gen. out.
If I had a 5870 I'd stand pat for now. You can see what their next gen. is and if it's not a worthwhile improvement at least the current models should drop in price. I would imagine that you could add another 5870, or even a 5970 for 3 way crossfire, at better pricing then.
If I had a 5870 I'd stand pat for now. You can see what their next gen. is and if it's not a worthwhile improvement at least the current models should drop in price. I would imagine that you could add another 5870, or even a 5970 for 3 way crossfire, at better pricing then.
Happy Medium, 3DVagabond: OP doesn't say he already has a 5870. From the wording, it appears he is looking to buy 2x5850 or 1x5870 "for now".
OK. Sorry, misunderstood. So, looking at ATI current offerings, personally, I'd get 2x 5850 (the MSI twin frozr for $270AR @ newegg seems to be a good deal) and ride that out until NI (skip SI) comes around.
Sorry.
SI = Southern Islands Which is ATI's next series of cards. It should start rolling out in Nov. There's conflicting reports whether they'll release the low end first or the high end.
NI = Northern Islands Will be out as soon as TSMC gets 28nm out. Probably a year or so from now (maybe??).
The actual improvement for SI compared to the current products isn't known, but is generally believed to be a bit modest. 20 percent has been a number bantered around. No one knows for sure though, might be more. I would be very very disappointed if it were less. NI should be on the order of twice as fast though. That's why I say get something now that should hold you until NI comes along. The 5850 generally O/C's to stock 5870 performance, without too much trouble. More if you don't mind watching the power draw jump up (a lot).
SI = Southern Islands Which is ATI's next series of cards. It should start rolling out in Nov. There's conflicting reports whether they'll release the low end first or the high end.
NI = Northern Islands Will be out as soon as TSMC gets 28nm out. Probably a year or so from now (maybe??).
The actual improvement for SI compared to the current products isn't known, but is generally believed to be a bit modest. 20 percent has been a number bantered around. No one knows for sure though, might be more. I would be very very disappointed if it were less. NI should be on the order of twice as fast though. That's why I say get something now that should hold you until NI comes along. The 5850 generally O/C's to stock 5870 performance, without too much trouble. More if you don't mind watching the power draw jump up (a lot).
- Aug 10, 2010
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Great info there I didn't know all this. I was just buying expensive hardware for the fun of it. It's has been five years since I have not built a machine. I have been out of the game for a while. If I go with a maximum rampage 3 extreme motherboard do I have to worry about amd graphics card performance on a intel chipsets board. I use to like green goblin(nvidia) but heard they not doing good. What should I be worried about here.
Nope.
Nope. They're fine, could be better, but fine.
Not much really.
If tessellation is your concern, stick with high-end Fermi cards.
If you are easily bothered by noise/temp but still want high end, 5870 might be better.
If you want the absolute fastest single GPU solution that is non-crossfire/non-SLI, it's the GTX 480
If you want the absolute fastest single card, it's the 5970.
If you are building an expensive rig from scratch, then heat/temps and power should be no concern since it is assumed you are going for a solid case with great airflow and a high-quality PSU. In that case, it is really just your personal threshold for noise that may drive you away from the GTX 470/480. If your room isn't dead-silent, it may be less of a concern (for example, if you've got an industrial fan running in the room anyway, or ambient noise in your house is a bit loud), but it has been known to drive some people to distraction. I don't know how you can find out if it is bearable for you or not outside of trying it out yourself.
EDIT: Forgot to mention, if this is really an expensive, no-holds-barred rig, you may also want to try out a 5970 or 5870 for eyefinity reasons. Having 3 monitors might be a good experience, can't say for myself as I've not had the pleasure of trying it out.
- Aug 10, 2010
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i just bought the Antec 902 case and also a TR-2 thermaltake black widow modular 850watt power suppply. The thing is the case is very quiet i find. You can adjust the fan according to the temperature you want. Also i am planing to buy thermaltake Frio Heatsink for the core i7 930. Is this fun enough to cool down the temperature at overclocking speed. Thanks guys for all the info. I was referred to this site by a friend. So far this is one of the best forum sites for tech info i have been too.
Many people (mostly reviewers) have expressed concern over the amount of heat that the high-end nVidia cards put out. With the GTX 480 I think the concern is warranted. The GTX 470 seems much better on that front and most users who have one don't report it being a problem.
The 480 also draws a lot of power so if you go that route when building a new rig, just keep that in mind when you are selecting a power supply.
The main reason that many people say nV isn't "doing so good" is that they were late to bring out their new cards. ATi had the 5870 and 5850 out in late September 2009. nV was supposed to launch their new cards around November 2009 but they did not launch and become available April 2010. So, yes, they goofed a bit. For someone who is buying a card now, however, it doesn't matter much. The important questions are: How do the cards perform and what are their prices?
That heatsink will do quite well for overclocking. It performs especially well on the High fan settings but you will get some noise from it. At low fan settings it still seems to perform very well and will be quiet.
For all-out perform the Noctua NH-D14 is a little bit more expensive but performs very well and is fantastically quiet. I put one on my dad's i7-920 rig and it is great. It is, however, very large so look at the dimensions and make sure it fits in your case if you decide to buy one.
I was under the impression the traditional pipeline went away with the NV30 when Nvidia introduced an array of shader cores?
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