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Using GPUs For General-Purpose Computing

Posted by timothy on from the transfer-of-duties dept.

Paul Tinsley writes "After seeing the press releases from both Nvidia and ATI announcing their next generation video card offerings, it got me to thinking about what else could be done with that raw processing power. These new cards weigh in with transistor counts of 220 and 160 million (respectively) with the P4 EE core at a count of 29 million. What could my video card be doing for me while I am not playing the latest 3d games? A quick search brought me to some preliminary work done at the University of Washington with a GeForce4 TI 4600 pitted against a 1.5GHz P4. My Favorite excerpt from the paper: 'For a 1500x1500 matrix, the GPU outperforms the CPU by a factor of 3.2.' A PDF of the paper is available here."

6 of 396 comments (clear)

  1. Maybe that's the answer... by rsilvergun · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    to all our compatibility woes. I keep hearing about how much faster G5's and Alpha's are than x86's, but it doesn't really matter if it won't run the apps I want. Now that processors are so cheap, why not just throw an x86 in for compatibity and then start over with a better design? Kinda like what the PS2 does so it can play PS1 games (I think).

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    1. Re:Maybe that's the answer... by John+Starks · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      This is offtopic, but...

      You keep hearing that they're faster because people don't like to admit they spent too much for inferior technology. Yes, arguably the x86 instruction set is inferior to newer, better engineered ones. But the newest offerings from Intel and AMD eclipse the G5 in speed. Apple failed to follow Spec guidelines when they released their benchmarks, thus allowing them to claim the performance crown unfairly.

      Read about it if you're unconvinced. This news has been floating around. I like Macs, but please don't spread lies for Apple. They're efficient enough without you.

      I see this a lot on Slashdot, and I try to always call people on it. I think people are just uninformed, but I also think the general Mac bias here influences it as well.

  2. Re:The day is saved by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Unless those Voodoo 2s have magically grown T&L units, they're not going to do you much good.

  3. Re:here ya go by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    Wow. You blatently copied a +5 post, even quoting the post number, from this very same discussion, and you yourself managed to get a +5 out of it! You, sir, are spectacular.

  4. Re:The day is saved by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    On second thoughts I don't want them. I'd like one of your telephone-teleporters instead.

  5. Re:The day is saved by Frnknstn · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Surely the real untapped goldmines are the shaders?

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