Advanced search

Message boards : Number crunching : GPU mmory important?

Author Message
Biggles
Send message
Joined: 20 Sep 08
Posts: 2
Credit: 354,917
RAC: 0
Level

Scientific publications
wat
Message 2486 - Posted: 20 Sep 2008 | 2:49:16 UTC

How much of a difference, if any, does the amount of memory on a GPU make?

I ask because I'm wondering how cards compare, for instance the 8800 GT with 256 MB of memory versus the 512 MB cards. The GPU itself is the same, but does the memory impact crunching times at all?

Biggles
Send message
Joined: 20 Sep 08
Posts: 2
Credit: 354,917
RAC: 0
Level

Scientific publications
wat
Message 2575 - Posted: 24 Sep 2008 | 0:16:29 UTC

So nobody knows the answer to this?

Profile K1atOdessa
Send message
Joined: 25 Feb 08
Posts: 249
Credit: 370,320,941
RAC: 0
Level
Asp
Scientific publications
watwatwatwatwatwatwatwatwatwatwatwatwatwatwatwatwatwatwatwatwatwat
Message 2578 - Posted: 24 Sep 2008 | 2:33:14 UTC - in response to Message 2486.

How much of a difference, if any, does the amount of memory on a GPU make?

I ask because I'm wondering how cards compare, for instance the 8800 GT with 256 MB of memory versus the 512 MB cards. The GPU itself is the same, but does the memory impact crunching times at all?


I've heard/read that the shader clock speed makes the biggest difference -- so, the WU times between two 8800GT's (one with 512MB memory and another with 256MB memory) should be very similar. I'm no expert, just reiterating what I've heard. The extra memory will help with games, but not so much with GPUGrid (focusing on gpu and shaders).

Profile GDF
Volunteer moderator
Project administrator
Project developer
Project tester
Volunteer developer
Volunteer tester
Project scientist
Send message
Joined: 14 Mar 07
Posts: 1957
Credit: 629,356
RAC: 0
Level
Gly
Scientific publications
watwatwatwatwat
Message 2580 - Posted: 24 Sep 2008 | 9:22:41 UTC - in response to Message 2578.

How much of a difference, if any, does the amount of memory on a GPU make?

I ask because I'm wondering how cards compare, for instance the 8800 GT with 256 MB of memory versus the 512 MB cards. The GPU itself is the same, but does the memory impact crunching times at all?


I've heard/read that the shader clock speed makes the biggest difference -- so, the WU times between two 8800GT's (one with 512MB memory and another with 256MB memory) should be very similar. I'm no expert, just reiterating what I've heard. The extra memory will help with games, but not so much with GPUGrid (focusing on gpu and shaders).



We suggest that you get 512MB. This will be fine for future gpugrid application which may require more memory.

gdf

Post to thread

Message boards : Number crunching : GPU mmory important?

//