Higher clocks or more pipes?

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10-10-2006, 04:38 PM
UKMuFFiN

Higher clocks or more pipes?

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Compa...954&CPID=17580

Whats best to go with?
Can you give a brief intro to what the pipes do?

Cheers
10-10-2006, 04:40 PM
sawyen

pipes buddy.. its all about pipes here..
10-10-2006, 04:46 PM
harry1

agreed the 7600 against the 7900 kinda gives it away imo, but yer its better.

where do you get that compare thing>?
10-10-2006, 05:25 PM
kalniel

(and memory interface) :p
10-10-2006, 05:35 PM
Clunk

ooooooooohhhh dannnyyyyyyyyyyy booooooooooooooooooooyyyy......:D
10-10-2006, 06:08 PM
UKMuFFiN

So how do the pipes relate to the workings of it then?
10-10-2006, 06:41 PM
chuckskull

The pipes are used to spin the waterwheels, thats why everyone talks about 'fluid' graphics. More pipes = more waterwheels = more 'fluid'.
10-10-2006, 09:49 PM
kalniel

Quote:

Originally Posted by UKMuFFiN

So how do the pipes relate to the workings of it then?

Graphics cards are actually quite parallel processors - instead of thinking of them as one big powerful processor, it's more accurate to think of them as a whole array of smaller processors. At different stages in the rendering pathway work gets split up and fed into several parallel pipelines which complete their task before passing it onto something else in the pathway.

Pixel shading, where a variety of effects are calculated on the fly per pixel, is very computationally intensive, but by it's nature is very easy to parallise. Rather than just having to speed up the whole processor, you can boost performance by having lots of shaders so they can churn through the intensive shading work. The same applies to other forms of shading such as vertex and geommetry shaders, but at the moment games don't use these anywhere as much as pixel shading.
11-10-2006, 12:41 AM
BlindMelon7

Wouldn't he be better off getting an XFX though. I would never use a company that I've never heard of!
11-10-2006, 01:18 AM
Clunk

Quote:

Originally Posted by BlindMelon7

Wouldn't he be better off getting an XFX though. I would never use a company that I've never heard of!

I would say to avoid XFX at all costs, every XFX xard that i have had, has broke, and they charge premium rates to patronise you on the phone...thats if you can get through. (just my opinion)
11-10-2006, 01:56 AM
BlindMelon7

lol, bugger. I was going to get that palit one for my brother but I spent an extra 20 pounds (poundsign isn't working, stupid linux) on an xfx because he thought it looked/therfore was, better.
11-10-2006, 09:54 AM
kalniel

Everyone knows that looks are important for performance. Look at all the shiney heatspreaders on RAM for example ;)
11-10-2006, 10:20 AM
chuckskull

Don't diss heatspreaders, they make it really easy to ship RAM. nice and solid :P