more pipelines and less clock are the future?

[ewilson248]

In doing an in-depth comparison of my GeForce FX5950 Ultra 475/950
vs the new 6800 and the x800 ATI pieces, I noticed one significant chunk of info: It looks to me that both ATI and Nvidia are going parallel rather than serial, in other words: more pipelines / less clock. One of the new 6800's is actually is slower than my old card in terms of raw speed but has twice the amount of pipelines in 2 different catagories. Are we seeing a change in philosphy of architecture, or have we run up against the wall of a thermal or electrical power problem?

 

[blackeye]

As long as there is a high fill rate it doesnt really matter to me how the companies achieve it. Kinda like AMD and Intel.

 

[blahblahblah]

You can't compare clockspeeds among different video cards. You can only compare clockspeeds among identical video cards (like a stock X800 Pro and a overclocked X800 Pro). Most often different chipsets can run at different (and slower) speeds and still be as effective (if not more effective) than older cards.

The number of pipelines in a video card is slightly deceiving. At lower resolutions (like 1024 by 768), more pipelines will not always mean better performance. The additional pipelines will help, but only to a limited extent. This is because the pipelines are not being fully utilized (they are dependent on esolution). However, more pipelines are usefully and more expenisve graphics have more features, higher clockspeed, better memory, etc.

Here is an example to explain this. I have two freeway's a four lane freeway and an 8 lane freeway and they run parallel to each other and reach the same destination. Now lets assume that it is 11:00 in the morning, the morning rush is over and there is little traffic on the road. If I were to go on either of freeway's I would reach my destination at the same time. Going on a 8 lane freeway will not help me get to my destination faster if the freeway is not being used all the way. Runnnig a game at a lower resolution is the same way with these higher end cards. Having a 16 pipeline card is not being put to good use at lower resolutions.

Now lets assume it is 6:00 in the evening and you are in the middle of rush hour and traffic is really heavy. Going on the 8 lane freeway is going to be much faster than the 4 lane freeway because it can handle more traffic. The exact same thing will be true with graphics card. A 16 pipeline card will repeatedly beat a 12 pipeline card in to submission time and time again only if you turn up the traffic (which would be resolution).

I think Nvidia and ATI are creating cards with more pipelines because we are in the middle of another resolution change in gaming (besides that competition thing they've got going on). It used to be 800 by 600 was standard and now it is 1024 by 768 and it is looking like 1280 by 1024 will become the next standard. I also think that if a person pays that much money for a video card, they should be able to turn up the resolution really high and enjoy their games with decent frame rates.

As for electrical problems, I don't know. I only know that it is disappointing that high end PCI Express cards will require a power connector because the PCI Express slot will not give enough power to the graphics card. They did a wonderful job of predicting power usage for this new standard.

For thermal problems, they build these graphics card quite hardy. My X800 Pro can handle tempertures of 100 C with no problem (though I would never push it up that high). I don't imagine tempertures will be a problem unless this graphics card war escalates dramatically.