Sort large arrays very quickly, or learn to write general-purpose programs for your GPU...

[TerryMathews]

GPUsort

In specific, check out the benchmarks. The 6000 series of nVidia GPUs or the x800 series of ATi GPUs are so much faster than even the newest CPUs it just isn't funny.

 

[Lonyo]

Originally posted by: TerryMathews
are so much faster than even the newest CPUs it just isn't funny.

I don't see any dual core chips, or anything from AMD.
Yes, it's nice people are using GPU's for more than just graphics, it's a good use of processing power that would otherwise sit idle, but your last statement is not really true.
7800GTX vs Athlon X2 would be needed to check it

 

[TerryMathews]

Originally posted by: Lonyo
I don't see any dual core chips, or anything from AMD.

I'm sorry you feel that way, but if you actually look at the graph instead of reading what it's about then dismissing it out of hand, you would see that as the data set gets larger, the GPU doesn't slow down anywhere near as much as the CPU does. The CPU graphs appear to be some form of a logarithmic curve, whereas the GPUs remain approximately linear.

A second core isn't going to help you there. Even with a second core and 100% efficiency, which almost never happens with SMP, you'd still have the nVidia GPU twice as fast, and the ATi almost 4x as fast. For the large data sets, of course.

An overclocked-to-hell-and-back AMD X2 might be able to keep close to the nVidia GPU, if the sorting algorithm can even be made to be multithreaded...

At any rate, none of this disputes the fact that modern GPUs are hella fast.

 

[Argo]

I think it all has to do with Video Cards having much faster memory these days.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Not only is it not GPL, it isn't free.