Question: Nvidia vs AMD shader count.

[RobertPters77]

Why is it that with less shaders Nvidia cards beat AMD cards?

I used to buy almost exclusively ATI card back in the good ol' DX9 days. But since the advent of DX10 and unified shaders, it has always bugged me why with so much horsepower are AMD cards so much slower to their Nvidia counterparts? I'm OCDish about certain things, having unused things in my life is one of them. So I've avoided AMD cards except for the one time I bought a 4850 for the hell of it. I had an 8800gts that lasted me for 5 years, then I bought the 4850, and now I have a 460.

I've heard that with the old Vec5 and even with the new Vec4 architecture only about 50% of shader power is being utilized. So why doesn't AMD just cut out the parts that don't work or make them work? Or is their architecture so poorly designed that they can't without sacrificing overall horsepower?

 

[badb0y]

Different architectures

 

[Lonyo]

Because the shaders aren't the same. Why does a Core i5 (4 CPU cores) at 3GHz run faster than an AMD Phenom II with 4 cores at 3GHz? Because the cores aren't the same.

Also, the clocks of the shaders are difference, so while NV might have 1/3rds as many shaders, they run 75% faster, so it's not quite as huge a disparity as it seems comparing say 512 to 1536 (GTX580 vs HD6970).

Also, I fail to see how it is "poorly designed", when it's made of less transistors and uses less power (which being approximately correspondingly slower, if not even more efficient on both counts).
Focusing on one metric and calling it a bad design is not really a intelligent assessment.

If you take TechPowerUp's assessment, the GTX580 is 13% faster than the HD6970. It does that while needing 75% more clockspeed! That's bad design. Why does it need such a high clock speed increase to be only a small amount faster?
13% faster. 33% bigger GPU die! Such bad design. Why doesn't NV just cut out a lot of the transistors.

 

[Grooveriding]

Difference in architecture.

Why are AMD cards faster at high resolutions but nvidia's are faster at lower resolutions ?

Because their architectures are different.

 

[cusideabelincoln]

AMD markets their shaders differently.

 

[betasub]

Not all shaders are created equally. Different architectures, different implementations, different clockspeeds.

 

[Ancalagon44]

Read up on architecture before you diss AMD cards. In simple terms, as far as I understand, AMD splits its shaders up into simpler units, whereas Nvidia prefers less but more complicated shaders that can clock to much higher speeds.

Look at performance vs power consumption before you decide that AMD is wasting shader units.

 

[RobertPters77]

Why are AMD cards faster at high resolutions but nvidia's are faster at lower resolutions ?

At 2560x1600 my 460 beats my cousin's 5830.

AMD markets their shaders differently.

How?

Read up on architecture before you diss AMD cards. In simple terms, as far as I understand, AMD splits its shaders up into simpler units, whereas Nvidia prefers less but more complicated shaders that can clock to much higher speeds.

So Nvidia = Complex, Amd = Simple?

Wait. It's like Intel vs Amd cpu wise.

Intel Cpu = X amount of performance @ 1ghz. Amd Cpu = X @ 2ghz. Just an example but you know what I mean.

Then why doesn't Amd close the gap with Intel and Nvidia in order to achieve X at whatever marker used to measure X.

 

[RocksteadyDotNet]

Trollin.


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[Ancalagon44]

Just read a few anandtech articles on the architectures and you'll get the picture.

 

[RobertPters77]

Just read a few anandtech articles on the architectures and you'll get the picture.

I did but I still don't get it.

Why does AMD go the simple route and Nvidia go the complex route?

What benefit is there for each side? I remember in the good ol' DX9 days everything was simpler. 6800 Ultra and the X800XT both had 16 pixel pipelines, 6 vertex shaders, 16 texture units, and 16 raster ops. What it came down to was clock speed and memory.

 

[RocksteadyDotNet]

I did but I still don't get it.

Why does AMD go the simple route and Nvidia go the complex route?

Because AMD's way gives better performance per transister and per watt.

 

[Ancalagon44]

I did but I still don't get it.

Why does AMD go the simple route and Nvidia go the complex route?

Because the price of eggs was particularly high when AMD made their decision.

I'm beginning to think that RockSteadyDotNet is right and you are just trolling. How would we know exactly why AMD did what it did? You obviously havent read the articles BTW.


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If you have reason to suspect a member's post and/or thread is in violation of posting guidelines then you are expected to do nothing more than report the post and leave the matter to the capable hands of your moderator staff.

Please familiarize yourself with the AnandTech Forum Guidelines:

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[RobertPters77]

Because the price of eggs was particularly high when AMD made their decision.

I'm beginning to think that RockSteadyDotNet is right and you are just trolling. How would we know exactly why AMD did what it did? You obviously havent read the articles BTW.

Eggs were cheaper in 2005/6 even when accounting for inflation.

He's just pissed off that he pays way to much for hardware in the land down under.

I'm really curious. Anand explains it nicely but still too complicated for my peasant brain.

 

[Grooveriding]

Trollin.

Agreed. Added him to ignore for the sake of forum enjoyment.


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Moderator Idontcare

 

[1h4x4s3x]

Yup, way too obvious.
Reported.


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In the future please limit your actions regarding questionable posts to simply reporting them and leave it at that.

Moderator Idontcare

 

[RobertPters77]

Wow. All I came here was to ask a question.

You 'people' are so sensitive.

Can a man not ask a Question and seek a Satisfactory Answer?

No say anandtech forums members.

 

[Ancalagon44]

Not when he displays intentional ignorance.


Thread-crapping and insults are not acceptable.

Please familiarize yourself with the AnandTech Forum Guidelines:

We want to give all our members as much freedom as possible while maintaining an environment that encourages productive discussion. It is our desire to encourage our members to share their knowledge and experiences in order to benefit the rest of the community, while also providing a place for people to come and just hang out.

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[RobertPters77]

Not when he displays intentional ignorance.

Ignorance is never intentional.

Now back to the matter at hand. If the GTX 570 trades blows with the 6970.
Then what gives the 570 that much more oomph to match the 6970?

http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php?card1=640&card2=638

Theoretically the 6970 should win hands down.

 

[Ancalagon44]

Yup, intentional ignorance. If you wanted to understand, you could. Hence you are trolling. We provided some basic information, and told you to go read the articles. You claim to have done so but still have really stupid questions. Hence, you are trolling.


This manner of personal insults are not acceptable in the technical forums.

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[Lonyo]

Ignorance is never intentional.

Now back to the matter at hand. If the GTX 570 trades blows with the 6970.
Then what gives the 570 that much more oomph to match the 6970?

http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php?card1=640&card2=638

Theoretically the 6970 should win hands down.

Theoretically the GTX570 should win hands down because it has 25% more active transistors. Looks like NV have over-engineered their cores to use too many transistors without those extra transistors giving any actual performance improvement at all.

 

[RobertPters77]

Theoretically the GTX570 should win hands down because it has 25% more active transistors. Looks like NV have over-engineered their cores to use too many transistors without those extra transistors giving any actual performance improvement at all.

Then I'm back at square one. Fcuck I think I need a PHD to understand half this stuff.

Ohwell thank you anyway. Atleast someone tried to help.

 

[itsmydamnation]

Wow. All I came here was to ask a question.

You 'people' are so sensitive.

Can a man not ask a Question and seek a Satisfactory Answer?

No say anandtech forums members.

why is sharder count important, last die shot we had from AMD was RV770 but it has about the same amount of physical space allocated to shaders as G80 based parts (as a percentage). NV have high efficenty per shader AMD have higher efficentcy per mm sq. which is better? which metrics do you care about guess that depends how well your design scales. cayman XT is something like like 70% of the size of 580 yet is around 90% of the performance.

edit: some people would consider cayman 384 shader part

 

[BD231]

More shaders at lower clocks, can't argue with the results.

 

[RobertPters77]

why is sharder count important, last die shot we had from AMD was RV770 but it has about the same amount of physical space allocated to shaders as G80 based parts. NV have high efficenty per shader AMD have higher efficentcy per mm sq. which is better? which metrics do you care about guess that depends how well your design scales. cayman is something like like 70% of the size of yet performs around 90% of the performance.

Because I want to know why and how things are achieved. If Amd has better performance per sq mm, then why do they not have a single gpu card that can match the 580?