New GPU Testing Methodology Puts Multi-GPU Solutions In Question

Vigile writes "A big shift in the way graphics cards and gaming performance are tested has been occurring over the last few months, with many review sites now using frame times rather than just average frame rates to compare products. Another unique testing methodology called Frame Rating has been started by PC Perspective that uses video capture equipment capable of recording uncompressed high resolution output direct from the graphics card, a colored bar overlay system and post-processing on that recorded video to evaluate performance as it is seen by the end user. The benefit is that there is literally no software interference between the data points and what the user sees, making it is as close to an 'experience metric' as any developed. Interestingly, multi-GPU solutions like SLI and CrossFire have very different results when viewed in this light, with AMD's offering clearly presenting a poorer, and more stuttery, animation."

Re:You use GPUs for video games?

[lordofthechia]

Don't forget electrical costs. At $0.10 a kWh you are paying $0.24 a day (24 hours) per 100 watts of continuous average power consumption. This is $7.20 per month per 100W @ $0.10 /kWh or $87.60 a year. Adjust up/down for your cost of electricity and power usage (120W and $0.12/kWh = 1.2 * 1.2 = 1.44x adjustment)

Now add to this the waste heat vented into your house on the months you cool your house + the depreciated costs (and wear and tear) of the computer assets you tied up processing Bitcoins, then you'll have your true cost and you can calculate your break even point based on initial investment + ongoing costs - product (bitcoins) produced.

Developers

[LBt1st]

This is interesting from a developer standpoint as well. This means we are wasting processing time rendering frames and are only displayed for a handful of milliseconds. These frames could be dropped entirely and that processing time could go to use elsewhere.

Re:You use GPUs for video games?

[amanicdroid]

Bitcoins stayed around $13 to 1 for months and you're correct, there wasn't a breakeven point for GPU mining. With Bitcoins trading at $30 the breakeven point is available again. For how long, I don't know, and I wouldn't bet a business on it.

Re:You use GPUs for video games?

[tyrione]

This is the explanation I've been given for the disparity between Nvidia and AMD: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Why_a_GPU_mines_faster_than_a_CPU#Why_are_AMD_GPUs_faster_than_Nvidia_GPUs.3F [bitcoin.it] Specifically:

Secondly, another difference favoring Bitcoin mining on AMD GPUs instead of Nvidia's is that the mining algorithm is based on SHA-256, which makes heavy use of the 32-bit integer right rotate operation. This operation can be implemented as a single hardware instruction on AMD GPUs (BIT_ALIGN_INT), but requires three separate hardware instructions to be emulated on Nvidia GPUs (2 shifts + 1 add). This alone gives AMD another 1.7x performance advantage (~1900 instructions instead of ~3250 to execute the SHA-256 compression function).

For GPU programming I've enjoyed Nvidia's CUDA package greatly over wrangling OpenCL that Radeon relies on.

You're living on borrowed time with CUDA. The entire industry has already moved to OpenCL and it will only expand when all the heavy Engineering and Science vendors are fully on-board. When Ansys 14.5 already moved to OpenCL for its latest release you know such a conservative corporation is one of the last to make the transition.