What Are Cuda Cores

[misterman]

What are cuda cores and how much do they affect gaming 

[scobie56]

a cuda core is just a core on say a cpu, Nvidia calls there cores cuda cores and amd called them stream processors

so a 1080 will have 2560 cuda cores, meaning it has 2560 cores. thats a really basic example

but don't get cpu and GPU cores mixed up

[Jurrunio]

Each cuda core is a compute unit. More means better performance, but direct comparison is only possible within the same generation. Also clock speed play an important role in judging each cores' performance.

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57 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

Each cuda core is a compute unit. More means better performance, but direct comparison is only possible within the same generation. Also clock speed play an important role in judging each cores' performance.

nope, a compute unit is a core. On a GPU a core contains shaders which are called cuda cores.

 

59 minutes ago, scobie56 said:

a cuda core is just a core on say a cpu, Nvidia calls there cores cuda cores and amd called them stream processors

so a 1080 will have 2560 cuda cores, meaning it has 2560 cores. thats a really basic example

but don't get cpu and GPU cores mixed up

nope, it has 2560 shaders not cores.

 

Cuda cores are shaders, stream processors are shaders. The true question is whats a shader.

Ever since GPUs came out for dx10, they use a unified architecture. What this means is that the GPU cores contain more general purpose units. These units are usually called shaders. Each shader is basically like some kind of tiny processor part of a larger one (like the SSE units in an x86 CPU) that can perform some tasks, not every.

 

So each GPU core contains a decoder to decode instructions for the core itself. The workload is then sent to the various different units in the core depending on the work itself. Each GPU core consists of shaders (nvidia calls them cuda cores, nvidia calls theirs stream processors), TMUs, ROPs and in some GPUs they have other units as well. Each unit has a contribution to graphics so a GPU with more of a particular unit is faster at a particular graphics setting.

TMUs do everything texture related, even AF as well. More vram allows higher quality textures along with more TMUs

ROPs deal with post processing and AA

Shaders deal with math, stuff like 3d mesh calculations, shadows and so on. Stuff that needs calculations including effects.

 

A GPU with so many shaders isnt necessarily fast, it can be bottlenecked by other things like vram bandwidth, too few TMUs, too few ROPs (vega).

 

Remember a GPU has cores which itself has a bunch of shaders. So a full chip vega has 64 cores and not 4096 cores. Those 64 cores each has a bunch of shaders (like 64 each per core).

 

So shader count cannot be compared between different GPUs, only same generation GPUs. An AMD GCN (GCN, polaris, vega, fiji, etc) is not the same as a pascal shader, and a pascal shader is not the same as a kepler shader or even a fermi shader.

 

on intel, each shader on an intel IGP is actually a core too as each intel shadaer is an x86 core with a simplified decoder. So each intel shader is also a core which is what gives intel it's strong IGP IPC performance vs nvidia and AMD GPUs but intel only includes too few of its IGP cores.

[xsimplyjosh]

Cuda core is pretty much compute unit in terms of gpu Put it simply.

 

the more the better. But also have to factor in more than just cores alone, clock speed mem speed all come into play too one way or another.

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27 minutes ago, xsimplyjosh said:

Cuda core is pretty much compute unit in terms of gpu Put it simply.

 

the more the better. But also have to factor in more than just cores alone, clock speed mem speed all come into play too one way or another.

its not a compute unit. a compute unit is a GPU core and not a shader or cuda core. If you dont believe me simply query using openCL. A shader or CUDA core as you call it is simply part of a GPU core (like a CPU core). It cannot function independently and relies on the GPU core for operation. For instance if you give an array of numbers to multiply by another array of numbers, the GPU core will receive it and divide the elements to give to each shader (cuda core) to perform the work. Hence a shader (cuda core) is simply a unit part of a processor.

 

a GPU consists of a bunch of processor cores which is called a compute unit in compute terms . Each core/compute unit has a bunch of shaders, TMUs and ROPs.

 

For instance the vega 64 has 64 cores and 4096 shaders in total. 

 

When you look at a GPU block diagram, you see the shaders arranged in blocks. Each block is a GPU core.

 

Seriously guys, why do you keep getting this wrong. GPU shaders arent cores. Nvidia calls their shaders cuda cores, AMD calls their shaders stream processors, while intel just simplifies their x86 CPUs into GPU cores which also function as shaders. Hence only intel can call their shaders cores.