Questions about gpu accelerators

[Reversinatir]

What exactly does one of these do? Would popping a $200 16gb gddr5 gpu accelerator actually do anything to my computer if I tried to run a heavy load game like cyberpunk or Microsoft flight simulator? Would a $6000 tesla V100 do anything, not that I have money for one, just curious. 

 

If these wouldn't do anything for games what uses do they have outside of large calculations or data farms. Also, why weren't GPU accelerators used for crypto mining instead of GPUs?

[Levent]

They are used as compute modules for CUDA accelerated workloads (such as for machine learning, rendering, simulations) IIRC driver for those cards wont allow you to run and DX games, as for mining if they were profitable you most likely couldnt get them for that cheap. I missed your question about why they werent used for mining, its simple, one of these three apply; They cant mine, their hashrate is low, ROI is high.

[Reversinatir]

4 minutes ago, Levent said:

They are used as compute modules for CUDA accelerated workloads (such as for machine learning, rendering, simulations) IIRC driver for those cards wont allow you to run and DX games, as for mining if they were profitable you most likely couldnt get them for that cheap.

oh, I was under the impression they were used for large scale data computation.  My university had several data farms that utilized tesla cards that my friend got access to for running his senior thesis on which was polymorphic encryption algorithm. That project got him into a masters+PHD program.

 

I might get a cheaper older one for fun and see what I can get it do now that I know slightly better what they're actually for.