[Solved] Website about GPUs?

Peter

Does anyone know a website about GPUs? I want to learn about existing GPUs, but I don't want to buy a book for this. I already bought magazines about that, but they didn't help much?

dulsi

I don't know of such a website but I'm also unclear what you are looking for. Are you looking for specs or benchmarks of various GPUs? Are you looking for information about writing drivers for the GPUs?

Peter

dulsi I want to buy a new PC with a powerful GPU. I want to learn which available GPUs can do what (both in features and in performance).

poVoq

Hmm, right now GPUs are really expensive. Unless you really want to try out VR or such, I would rather not buy one for now.

Peter

Ok. But I want to play 3D RPGs and experiment with modern 3D GPU programming.

I don't want the most expensive GPU of the market. But not the cheapest, too.

poVoq

Feature wise the low end GPUs, even those integrated in x86 CPUs are quite comparable to the high end ones these days. So for learning that you don't need to buy one, at least unless you specifically wat to learn CUDA, which is Nvidia only (but a low end one will do).

Otherwise, even modern 3D RPG usually run fine on older/integrated GPUs if you stick to 1080p or 720p resolution. The need for a newer GPU is mainly for 4K displays and VR.

Peter

poVoq I want a new gaming PC.
And I don't know yet what a lower or higher GPU is.
I want to be able to understand what's available on the market for new GPUs.

I don't need CUDA and live-raytracing. I'm generally not a big Nvidia fan but I want to know a bit about their GPUs, too.

I looked at Tom's Hardware for example, but it is not much help for me.

poVoq

Well, if I was to build a new PC right now I would probably get a AMD Ryzen5 5600G CPU with integrated graphics and use that. Maybe in a year or two when GPU prices have normalized, you can get a dedicated GPU as an upgrade. With an integrated graphics you need to invest a bit more in fast dual-channel RAM as this is usually the bottleneck for the GPU.

Peter

Ok what about the Radeon RX Vega3 3-Core?

poVoq

Peter That seems to be a laptop integrated GPU.

Peter

This is strange because it is offered in a pre-built gaming desktop PC!

poVoq

Ah, it seems this chip was also made for Desktop CPUs, but given the age of the CPU (Zen 1) and the low specs of the GPU I don't think anyone would sell that as a "gaming" PC.

When it comes to integrated GPUs it is best to reference the CPU model as the integrated GPUs often have super obscure and non-descriptive names.

Peter

Well there are 3 or 4 explicitely called "Gaming PCs" (with that GPU) for sale at the big retailer saturn.de. And they are desktop PCs not notepads/laptops.

poVoq

Ugh, this one I assume? Its an old 2 core Ryzen Zen1, pretty much the lowest you can get. And do you really need everything new, including screen, case and mouse / keyboard? In that case it might be a better to just buy a laptop or look for an older used PC to salvage first.

Peter

There (saturn.de) are 4 PCs below 350,- € (all with aforementioned GPU). One of them is this: https://www.saturn.de/de/product/systemtreff-gaming-gaming-pc-mit-amd-athlon-pr-76559918.html

poVoq

I see. If you want to get something in that price area, better buy an used gaming PC from 2016ish. Plenty of those on the market and they will still easily outperform the above.

The reason I recommended the AMD Ryzen5 5600G is because it is a really good CPU by itself so it actually makes sense to upgrade it with a dedicated GPU some point in the future. With an old 2 core Zen 1 you can pretty much forget about that.

Peter

poVoq I have heard about shortage of good new GPUs. But I didn't know that the situation is that bad!

ntech_

For $300 (about 265 euros), you can get something like this on Ebay, with pretty good specs and which will be a much better value.

Peter

Thanks. You confirm what PoVoq is saying.

I want to learn GPU-programming. Do the gaming PCs on Ebay have a GPU that's good for that? I really know almost nothing about GPU programming (yet).

dulsi

Peter There is no restrictions on what you call a "gaming pc"? Some sellers will claim it is gaming pc even if people knowledgeable on the subject would not. You need to look at the components unfortunately. Since I don't have knowledge on graphics hardware, I defer to the others.

poVoq

GPU programming is usually used to refer to CUDA and OpenCL etc. I don't think that is what you want, no?

As for shader programming (HLSL, GLSL, Spir-V etc.) those are pretty much available on all GPUs for x86 systems (Mobile / ARM is a different story) since many years, even Vulkan is supported on pretty much anything since 2013 or so.

If you want an older dedicated GPU still good for gaming then look for 960 and higher (maxwell) on the Nvidia side and 460 and higher (polaris) on the AMD side.

Peter

poVoq

poVoq As for shader programming (HLSL, GLSL, Spir-V etc.) those are pretty much available on all GPUs for x86 systems

That's what I'm trying to do. I yet know nothing about that. And I want to learn that. I even don't know if shaders are the only thing to learn.