Pipelines

[Shane]

Hey people,

Whats this thing about Pipelines on a Graphics card?
What exactly do they do?

Does the more Pipelines on a card the better?

How many does my Graphics card have?

Sorry about all the questions but i would like to know what they do.

Thanks

 

[Jet]

Pipelines = how many "lanes" of data there are.
Core speed x amound of piplines = thoroghput.

for instance my card has a core speed of 500 mhz and also has 12 pixelpipelines. Therefore, 500*12=6000. Obviously, there is a lot more to a cards performance than this, but this is probably 50% of the card's performance.

 

[ceewi1]

Your card has 4 pipelines. For more info, take a look at Video Card 101. To Quote:

Pipelines.
Most commonly listed as "pixel pipelines" or "programmable shaders", the number of pipelines acts as the limiting factor on how many simultaneous shader programs can be run. Although cards do exist that do not have these shader pipelines, you are much better off getting a card with at least some pipelines. Unless you are severely price limited, you absolute minimum number of pipelines you should shoot for in a gaming card is 4. Those looking for midrange cards should generally shoot for cards with 8-12 pixel pipelines and the high end gamers should be looking to buy cards with more than 12 pipelines