By: Mark Roulo (nothanks.delete@this.xxx.com), April 23, 2013 3:20 pm
Room: Moderated Discussions
Formula350 (burban502.delete@this.gmail.com) on April 23, 2013 2:58 pm wrote:
> David Kanter (dkanter.delete@this.realworldtech.com) on April 23, 2013 8:14 am wrote:
>
> Eh, I don't quite think that's how it will pan out. Lets assume that by some freak occurrence the GT3e
> actually is faster then a GT650M, that doesn't mean by any stretch of the imagination that it is as
> capable as one. That wouldn't happen until you see Intel cramming 1GB of that eDRAM into their chips,
> because what that memory "unlocks" on a discrete GPU is the ability to store and/or quickly process textures.
> I can only presume this might work similar in cases of video editing where the GPU is being leveraged
> for rendering or compute work, but I'll refer more specifically to gaming. When you run a graphics card
> of higher performance with less RAM then that of a slightly lower performance card that is equipped with
> more RAM, the latter will actually pull ahead in instances where there is a call for texture storage space,
> such as when running high resolutions or with Anti-Aliasing being enabled.
This mix is a bit more complicated, though.
You have capacity limitations and memory bottlenecks at several places. So ...
The Intel IGPU has a bandwidth advantage going to system DRAM because it shares the memory controller (and access to the system DRAM) with the CPU. The discrete part is bandwidth limited because of PCIe.
I get how more memory (1 GB vs 128 MB) at fast speeds (64 GB/sec +) is good, but I'd also think that access to the rest of the system memory at faster speeds (25 GB/sec vs 5-10 GB/sec) would be good too.
Any idea how these two factors compete? I don't game and have no idea ...
> David Kanter (dkanter.delete@this.realworldtech.com) on April 23, 2013 8:14 am wrote:
>
As Intel’s integrated graphics becomes more capable and takes more of the market, DRAM consumption
> will shift from companies like Nvidia and AMD (which buy from Samsung, Hynix, Micron, etc.) to Intel.
>
> To put this in perspective, Intel has compared the Haswell
> GT3e performance to the discrete Nvidia GT 650M...
> Eh, I don't quite think that's how it will pan out. Lets assume that by some freak occurrence the GT3e
> actually is faster then a GT650M, that doesn't mean by any stretch of the imagination that it is as
> capable as one. That wouldn't happen until you see Intel cramming 1GB of that eDRAM into their chips,
> because what that memory "unlocks" on a discrete GPU is the ability to store and/or quickly process textures.
> I can only presume this might work similar in cases of video editing where the GPU is being leveraged
> for rendering or compute work, but I'll refer more specifically to gaming. When you run a graphics card
> of higher performance with less RAM then that of a slightly lower performance card that is equipped with
> more RAM, the latter will actually pull ahead in instances where there is a call for texture storage space,
> such as when running high resolutions or with Anti-Aliasing being enabled.
This mix is a bit more complicated, though.
You have capacity limitations and memory bottlenecks at several places. So ...
| GPU->GPU Memory | GPU->System Memory | GPU Memory | |
| 650m | 80 GB/sec | GPU->~ 5-10 GB/sec | 1 GB |
| GT3e | 64 GB/sec | GPU->~ 25-30+ GB/sec | 128 MB |
The Intel IGPU has a bandwidth advantage going to system DRAM because it shares the memory controller (and access to the system DRAM) with the CPU. The discrete part is bandwidth limited because of PCIe.
I get how more memory (1 GB vs 128 MB) at fast speeds (64 GB/sec +) is good, but I'd also think that access to the rest of the system memory at faster speeds (25 GB/sec vs 5-10 GB/sec) would be good too.
Any idea how these two factors compete? I don't game and have no idea ...