A very techincal question *advanced answer*

[Cirndle]

Now I got you here you have to answer it.

Regarding CPU and video cards.

How can you tell if the video card, or processor has the same gpu or cpu as a newer one, but is just slowed down with graphics card bios, or crippled like in some of the good AMD overclocker cases.

What would I look for when looking at their spcs on wiki like nm process and what not?



Thanks a million.

Who will answer JM, RW, or WM?

And the winner is?

[Cirndle]

Is there none brave enough to answer this?

[RickyTick]

It's a riddle, right? :confused:

[Cirndle]

lol no it is a real question here i will give a example


GeForce 7900 GTX GeForce 8500 GT GeForce 8600 GT GeForce 8600 GTS Geforce 8800GT GeForce 8800 Ultra Radeon HD 2900 XT
Transistor count 278 million 210 million 289 million 289 million 734 million 681 (~686) million 700 million
Manufacturing process 90 nm 80 nm 80 nm 80 nm 65 nm 90 nm 80 nm
Die Area 196 mm² 132 mm² 169 mm² 169 mm² 315mm² 480 mm² 425 mm²
Core clock speed 650 MHz 450 MHz 540 MHz 675 MHz 600 MHz 612 MHz 743 MHz
Shader clock speed 650 (700) MHz 900 MHz 1.18 GHz 1.45 GHz 1.5 GHz 1.5 GHz 743 MHz
Number of
Shader Processing units 24 + (8) 16 32 32 112 128 320
Number of ROPs 16 4 8 8 16 24 16
Number of TMUs 24 8 16 16 56 32 16
Peak pixel fill rate
(theoretical) 10.4 Gigapixel/s 1.8 Gigapixel/s 4.3 Gigapixel/s 5.4 Gigapixel/s 9.6 Gigapixels/s 14.7 Gigapixel/s 11.9 Gigapixel/s
Peak texture fill-rate
(theoretical) 15.6 Gigatexel/s 3.6 Gigatexel/s 8.6 Gigatexel/s 10.8 Gigatexel/s 33.6 Gigatexel/s 39.2 Gigatexel/s 11.9 Gigatexel/s
Video-block
PureVideo 1 PureVideo 2 PureVideo 2 PureVideo 2 PureVideo 2 PureVideo 1 AVIVO HD
On-board memory interface 256 (4*64-bit) 128 (2*64-bit) 128 (2*64-bit) 128 (2*64-bit) 256 (4*64-bit) 384 (6*64-bit) 512 (8*64-bit)
Memory clock speed 1.6 GHz GDDR3 800 MHz GDDR2 1.4 GHz GDDR3 2.0 GHz GDDR3 1.8 GHz GDDR3 2.16 GHz GDDR3 1.65 GHz GDDR3
2.0 GHz GDDR4
Peak memory bandwidth 51.2 GB/s 12.8 GB/s 22.4 GB/s 32.0 GB/s 57.6 GB/s 103.68 GB/s 105.6 GB/s (GDDR3)
128 GB/s (GDDR4)

[The Wise Monkey]

I'm not sure what the question is...

Are you asking how you can tell if a card is better just by looking at its stats on wikipedia?

If so, for most categories higher is better. Memory bandwidth, shader clock speed and core clock speed are probably the most important factors, but shade processing units are also very important.

We know how good a card is compared to another because we have owned loads of GFX cards and can say from experience. :)

Plus, Google is your friend at this point. You can find loads of reviews about cards and comparisons between them just by doing a quick search.

[Jamie Nixx]

For categories like Core speed and memory clock speed higher is better, but for things such as NM lower is better.

This has got to be the most baffling question ever asked inthe history of the PC lol :eek: :D

What is it that you would like to know exactly?

[Cirndle]

For clarification:

Regarding Processors and Graphics card.

How can you tell by looking at the stats of a card, or processor if it is actually the exact same hardware as a more expensive one.

Basically, you know how amd or intel cripples a processor or nvidia or ati cripple a graphics card so they can sell it cheaper, but if you flash the bios for graphics card, or idk what for processor you can get more out of it, basically finding out if you crad or chip is lucky enough to be a cripple most expensive model, so you can flash it, tweak, or mod it.

Do you get it now?

[The Wise Monkey]

So you want a decent card on the cheap, right? :D

You really shouldn't flash the BIOS on a GFX card as it could ruin the card. The short answer is that you cannot tell by looking at the stats of a card, as it depends on the firmware of the card. Have a look round on google for more information, but I would strongly argue against attempting to overwrite the firmware on the GFX card.

[Jamie Nixx]

Do not mess with the firmware on the cards or the BIOS, you could brick them, you don't want that when you have just spent a load of dosh on components.

[Cirndle]

I was just wondering in general why some cards are better then others, when they cost less?

[The Wise Monkey]

Because nVidia are sly bastards who want your money, so they release a new card for less and make you feel rubbish. XD

[Jamie Nixx]

Nvidia are very sly bastards as WM said, how do you think we feel, we all went out and bought 8800GTS's (i bought two) just to find out a few months later a card would come out that was cheaper and absolutely left them in the dust.

Its just the way the computer world works, if you want to start building computers your going to have to get used to it, you can't skimp on parts and still get the same performance you would like, it sucks but hey, we are all used to it.