Stupid question (Probably)

[JigglyPufflez]

I love my graphics cards I just have this love for them everyone of them especially high end ones (780 Ti, R9 290X) But I don't know what makes a card more powerful then another. Assuming I had a 3GB GTX 680 and 3GB GTX 780 Ti,(Assuming both are at the same core clock/boost) what makes the 780 Ti so much more powerful. I understand more stream processors would obviously help. But what else is there to take into consideration, architecture? Those are the only 2 I can think of. I do have a feeling this is might be a very stupid question, but I thought it was a shot and I am keen on understanding what makes one more powerful then the other Thanks in advanced for any help! All he is greatly appreciated. Please comment if you are willing to help though <33333 (No hate, never have everyone I have asked had no idea. All they said was "More Horsepower" but never told me what gives that extra horsepower)

[Tea1337]

More cores, it can push out more information to render each frame faster. Such as Nvidias cuda cores the more the better. Also the layout of the card for power circuit's and better components. 

[D3MON]

I love my graphics cards I just have this love for them everyone of them especially high end ones (780 Ti, R9 290X) But I don't know what makes a card more powerful then another. Assuming I had a 3GB GTX 680 and 3GB GTX 780 Ti,(Assuming both are at the same core clock/boost) what makes the 780 Ti so much more powerful. I understand more stream processors would obviously help. But what else is there to take into consideration, architecture? Those are the only 2 I can think of. I do have a feeling this is might be a very stupid question, but I thought it was a shot and I am keen on understanding what makes one more powerful then the other Thanks in advanced for any help! All he is greatly appreciated. Please comment if you are willing to help though <33333 (No hate, never have everyone I have asked had no idea. All they said was "More Horsepower" but never told me what gives that extra horsepower)

the "more power" answer is largely right, having more stream processors (and nvidias cuda core are just that these days) with more texture mapping units and more rops means that a given number of pixels on the screen can be drawn in less time, many hands make light work type of deal.

if you get 30fps at 1080p then went down to 720p (half the resolution) youll typically run twice as fast, this is why i lol everytime someone says "see my 8800gt gets an average of 40fps on high settings in bioshock infinate", 1# thats not a hard game to run, 2# your only running it at 720p and is aliased to hell. run 1080p on medium and ill be amazed..

also there is the difference in architecture from when amd switched from VLIWS4, VLIWS5 to gcn (and GCN1.1, and GCN 2.0), but this is really nerdy stuff im not 100% clued up on, you can google it but chances are youll start reading and find something else you dont get, you have to go off and google and read that before you can come back to the main article and carry on where you left off.

gpu's are allot like cpu's in some ways, they require a memory pool for the textures to be stored, the require fast, wide memory bus's to switch in and out those textures from memory, they even have l2 cache unless im much mistaken.

difference is gpu's are much slower (typically 1/3rd of the clock speed) of a cpu but MANY times more parallel.

[NinjaStyle013]

It's nearly identical to taking a 80s V8 (the 680) and the current V8 (780 TI) of the same litre and putting them in identical cars but the modern one wins.

Why? It's just had more research and development done to it, additional features etc.

Reality is the 780 has more cores and a better design

[D3MON]

It's nearly identical to taking a 80s V8 (the 680) and the current V8 (780 TI) of the same litre and putting them in identical cars but the modern one wins.

Why? It's just had more research and development done to it, additional features etc.

Reality is the 780 has more cores and a better design

id say a '00 audi 4.2 v8 vs a aston martin '10 6l v12.

but im pedantic, love cars, simile's and automation (the game)