Generation jump?

[evilmeister13]

So out of boredom, i decided to compare my 970 to the other x70 cards in the past to see how it gradually shifted. I was expecting the cuda cores to increase by 100-200 every time, but was a little shocked to see the massive jump between the 5xx and 6xx series cards. It went from 480 to 1344. That's a CRAZY increase. Why was there such an insane jump? And if the 6xx series is so vastly stronger, then how does linus's comment about the 590 destroying the 680 even make sense?

[typographie]

You can try to compare it like that, but it's not surprising to me that it doesn't make much sense. The change GTX 500's to the 600's was a complete architecture redesign (Fermi vs. Kepler) so every core is not necessarily equal. GTX 600 to 700 is still Kepler, though, so comparing core counts between those generations makes a bit more sense. Furthermore, the GTX 590 is a dual-GPU card, so is that 480 count for a single core or the total?

 

Edit: Where'd the 480 figure come from? Nvidia says the GTX 590 has 1024 cores.

 

There are also a lot of other components that make a big difference. ROPs, the memory bus, and the various clock speeds present all affect the end performance of the card.

[evilmeister13]

You can try to compare it like that, but it's not surprising to me that it doesn't make much sense. The change GTX 500's to the 600's was a complete architecture redesign (Fermi vs. Kepler) so every core is not necessarily equal. GTX 600 to 700 is still Kepler, though, so comparing core counts between those generations makes a bit more sense. Furthermore, the GTX 590 is a dual-GPU card, so is that 480 count for a single core or the total?

There are also a lot of other components that make a big difference. ROPs, the memory bus, and the various clock speeds present all affect the end performance of the card.

The 590 has 1024 and the 680 has 1536. How is the 590 supposed to compete?

[evilmeister13]

You can try to compare it like that, but it's not surprising to me that it doesn't make much sense. The change GTX 500's to the 600's was a complete architecture redesign (Fermi vs. Kepler) so every core is not necessarily equal. GTX 600 to 700 is still Kepler, though, so comparing core counts between those generations makes a bit more sense. Furthermore, the GTX 590 is a dual-GPU card, so is that 480 count for a single core or the total?

Edit: Where'd the 480 figure come from? Nvidia says the GTX 590 has 1024 cores.

There are also a lot of other components that make a big difference. ROPs, the memory bus, and the various clock speeds present all affect the end performance of the card.

I was referencing the 570 in that post.

[typographie]

The 590 has 1024 and the 680 has 1536. How is the 590 supposed to compete?

 

Well, like I said, a GPU isn't just a bunch of cores with a clock speed. There's more components there that affect performance. The 590 has 48 ROPs per GPU, versus the 680's single GPU with only 32 ROPs. That alone probably accounts for the difference. Further, the two GTX 580 GPUs also have the same number of texture units as the 680.

 

Even considering those things, the 680 was praised at launch for getting so close to the 590. I'm not sure I'd agree that it "destroys" the 680, though its consistently a bit faster. Overclock the GTX 680 (i.e. make it a GTX 770) and I think it can beat the 590 most of the time.

Directly compared here: http://www.anandtech.com/show/5699/nvidia-geforce-gtx-680-review