Tom's Hardware has written a 15-page long test report about NVIDIA's CUDA technology, the site has tested the GeForce 9600 GT and 9800 GTX in five CUDA-enabled applications. You can check out the results over here, the conclusion is that even mid-range cards deliver a nice performance boost in CUDA applications.
That’s all well and good, but proof of CUDA’s incendiary capabilities has largely been proven on high-end GPUs. I’m on a tight budget. Friends are getting mowed down around me by lay-offs and wage-cuts like bubonic plague victims. You bet, I’d love to drop ten or twelve Benjamins on a 3-way graphics overhaul, but the reality is that, like many of you, I’ve only got one or two C-notes to spare. On a good day. So the question all of us who can’t afford the graphics equivalent of a five-star menage-a-troi should be asking is, “Does CUDA mean anything to me when all I can afford is a budget-friendly card for my existing system?”
Let’s find out. Today, we'll be looking at some of the most promising titles and measuring the speed-up garnered from a pair of mid-range GPUs.
