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What is the deal with mobile GPUs vs PC GPUs? (lemmy.world)

submitted 7 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

21 comments fedilink hide all child comments

For anyone who knows.

Basically, it seems to me like the technology in mobile GPUs is crazier than desktop/laptop GPUs. Desktop GPUs obviously can do things better graphically, but not by enough that it seems to need to be 100x bigger than a mobile GPU. And top end mobile GPUs actually perform quite admirably when it comes to graphics and power.

So, considering that, why are desktop GPUs so huge and power hungry in comparison to mobile GPUs?

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 7 months ago (6 children)

It’s a little amusing how many respondents thought mobile GPUs meant laptop GPUs despite it being clear in your post.

There are several factors at play from mobile GPUs being ARM based, having unified memory and some laws of physics meaning more size and power has diminishing returns.

Phone GPUs based are generally comparable to budget desktop GPUs on a per generation comparison.

Despite this mobile games tend to look amazing compared to what you would expect out of a PC game on low end hardware.

Part of this is optimisation, part of it is more efficient graphics libraries targeting a much lower range of hardware. Similar to how lower spec consoles often have great looking games, targeting only one hardware layout can allow for crazy optimisations.

See the PS3 era games for examples of really pushing hardware to its absolute limits for graphics.

Sadly my answer isn’t as technically detailed as Id like but it’s a complex topic when you really delve into it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (2 children)

mobile GPUs being ARM based

Could you elaborate?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago (1 children)

ARM is an instruction set similar to x86 however it is more power efficient, for a number of reasons.

It doesn’t help the confusion that ARM is a company and produces CPUs and GPUs but you can find the ARM instruction set in use on a wide range of SoC and other hardware.

It is popular for use cases where power efficiency is important.

For example Apple uses the ARM instruction set for their M serious which are a SoC containing CPU, GPU and memory.

SoC = System on a Chip.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago

I think you might be confusing the ARM instruction set with the ARM company. I don't have any insider knowledge, but I don't think the Mali GPU is based on the ARM instruction set.

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