6 Teraflops Of Graphical Processing Power

What are teraflops?

(Image credit: Shutterstock)

With all the speculation over the power of the PS5 and Xbox Series X, you may discover yourself wonder what are teraflops?

It's a word you've probably seen bandied nigh recently, and we're here to explain everything.

Teraflops are 1 of the stranger-sounding pieces of calculating jargon. They may sound like early-level enemies in some 90s jurassic-themed platform game, but actually they stand for something far more powerful, and are a factor when discussing graphical power and performance on a gaming platform or GPU.

what are teraflops? — (Prototype credit: Future)

Teraflops don't tell the whole story

And then teraflops are a convenient and all-encompassing measurement of graphical power on a games panel or GPU. But as is often the case with computing, the reality isn't quite equally elementary and you probably shouldn't use tflops as the ultimate barometer when researching your side by side GPU or console.

First, permit'due south brainstorm with other factors on the GPU itself. Probably the most important hardware consideration that's not included in the teraflops calculation is memory bandwidth - or the VRAM speed, as measured in gigabytes per second (GB/s).

And then at that place'due south the size of the memory cache on your GPU, the GPU architecture, and even the very software drivers that interpret your GPU's ability into actual gameplay.

With all these things considered, comparison the tflops between, say an AMD GPU and an Nvidia GPU, or a PS5 and Xbox Series X, is kind of redundant because the software and hardware architecture are and so dissimilar between these things.

At 14.2 TFLOPS, the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti beats out the Xbox Series X, but that's not all that matters — At fourteen.2 TFLOPS, the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti beats out the Xbox Series X, simply that'due south not all that matters (Image credit: Futurity)

With all these factors in play, the existent-earth performance of a GPU tin deviate considerably from what you'd expect its tflops to deliver. There are plenty of instances of GPUs with less tflops running certain games at college frame-rates than GPUs with more tflops.

The optimisations of an individual game and even the CPU will also affect a game'due south graphical operation. If, for case, at that place are more characters on-screen and more AI calculations to make - in games like Grand Theft Auto Five or Assassin'due south Creed - this will exist a job for the CPU, which can actually affect that precious frame rate.

So, exercise teraflops matter?

Yes they do, but not equally much every bit the Microsoft marketing car would have you recall. This foregrounding of flops as some kind of supreme measure of graphical functioning is a relatively recent phenomenon, perhaps considering information technology gives consumers a small, simple number that's easy to latch onto.

Call back in the 1990s when all that fuss was made nigh 'bits' when the 64-bit N64 came out, and how your young brain assumed this must be twice as good as the 32-bit PS1? While flops are a more tangible mensurate of performance than those N64 bits, it'due south still far from an exact scientific discipline that the 12-tflop Xbox Series X will be twice as powerful as the six-tflop Xbox I Ten.

Information technology may be more, information technology may be less depending on many other factors.

Yeah, the 12 tflops on the Xbox Serial X audio impressive, but for now information technology's but theoretical, and bodily gaming performance volition depend on other aspects of the GPU compages, and how well the panel's software, drivers and APIs take reward of that power.

And then our communication: don't let yourself exist blown abroad past theoretical numbers!

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Robert Zak is a freelance writer for Official Xbox Magazine, PC Gamer, TechRadar and more. He writes in print and digital publishing, specialising in video games. He has previous experience as editor and writer for tech sites/publications including AndroidPIT and ComputerActive! Magazine.