significance of number of streams in GPU

[avidracer]

Hi
I would like to know about the significance of the number of streams in a GPU. Is more the better always?
I'm in the marked for a new GPU (deliberating in my mind) to replace by NVS 290 quadro. I would be doing more encoding (x264). I dont intend to game. I was looking at some midrange cards like the new 4670 from ATI vs 9600 series from NVDIA. From what I see, the major difference is in the number of streams between the two - (320 ati vs 64 nvidia). Otherwise all the benchmark found in various gadget sites only compares gaming performance. Since I dont intend to game I thought the wise people in the forum would be able to guide me make a better/wiser choice - in selecting a new GPU (if it would improve performance with the current quadro NVS 290). Thanks!

[Dark Shikari]

They're stream processors, not streams, afaik.

If you're doing encoding with x264, the GPU is meaningless.

[avidracer]

hi Dark Shikari,
Thanks for the input. I read in someother threads that you are one of the x264 builders, so I'm going to assume that a better GPU is not going help.

But, I was mislead by the claims of ATI and NVIDIA that some encoding and de-coding will be handled by the GPU offline (helping the processor) using AVIVO and PureVideo technologies respectively. Nvidia is also building some bada$$ application called badaboom to off-load the processor and let the GPU do the encoding.

[Dark Shikari]

But, I was mislead by the claims of ATI and NVIDIA that some encoding and de-coding will be handled by the GPU offline (helping the processor) using AVIVO and PureVideo technologies respectively.Decoding, yes, through DXVA.Nvidia is also building some bada$$ application called badaboom to off-load the processor and let the GPU do the encoding.Already released, and it turned out to be awful (slower than x264 and worse quality).

[squid_80]

If you're doing encoding with x264, the GPU is meaningless.Not completely true, the source has to come from somewhere. If it's being decoded on the GPU, more CPU cycles for x264.

Nvidia's CUDA is a lot more usable than DXVA for decoding, although it's still early stages and there are bugs to be worked out (see the DGAVCIndexNV thread for more info).