Ask GN 48: CUDA Cores, Stream Processors, & Repair Laws

By Steve Burke Published April 09, 2017 at 5:53 pm

Hardware

This week’s episode of Ask GN (#48!) talks CUDA core vs. Stream Processor differences at a top level, cooling suppliers, right to repair laws, and more.

The cooling supplier question is an interesting one: A user wondered what differences a manufacturer – someone like Corsair, NZXT, or others – might actually make when purchasing a semi-custom solution from a supplier. While it is possible to buy an off-the-shelf solution from the likes of Asetek, CoolIT, Apaltek, and others, the more common option is to customize the solution to some extent. This can be as low-level as instituting an entirely new PCB (see: Kraken series) or can be higher level, like tube length and pump flowrate.

Learn more in the video:

Timestamps:

01:05 LuissRicardo: "Is it worth paying more for a GPU with liquid cooling to be able to OC it? I mean, if the difference isn't significant then I can stick with air cooling."

5:15 Otterwise: "What kind of changes from the OEM designs do companies like Corsair make when they design AIO watercooling units? Are they just cosmetic or do they modify coldplates/etc?"

09:57 chazzy2501: "HEY! Does VRAM stacking really exist, is it a DX12 only thing? I thought the double memory I saw in GTA5 (DX11) was a bug but maybe it supports stacking? This was a deus ex mankind divided query (dx12 sli patch) if stacking is true, then I can run the ultra settings and forget the vram limitations. I have GTX970 in 2x sli cheers"

12:55 Comanso Rowlett: "Ask GN: What is the difference between Streaming processors and Cuda cores? And are they comparable when comparing an NVIDIA GPU to an AMD one? E.g. 3584 Cuda cores equal the same as 3584 streaming processors?"

19:10 Dr. Brandroid: "I was reading your article about the right to repair bills, and had a question about how it would affect me as a small business computer repair shop. I know not all companies are going to do this nonsense, but the ones that do could hurt my business if I'm just flat out not allowed to repair them. Do you think there will be a tech cert from these companies that allow the repairs?"

25:55 C.Swords: "What do game developers have to do to ‘optimise’ a game. What is their process of this?"

Host: Steve Burke
Video: Andrew Coleman

Ask GN

Steve Burke

Steve started GamersNexus back when it was just a cool name, and now it's grown into an expansive website with an overwhelming amount of features. He recalls his first difficult decision with GN's direction: "I didn't know whether or not I wanted 'Gamers' to have a possessive apostrophe -- I mean, grammatically it should, but I didn't like it in the name. It was ugly. I also had people who were typing apostrophes into the address bar - sigh. It made sense to just leave it as 'Gamers.'"

First world problems, Steve. First world problems.