Somewhat OT, though it has to do with render speeds:

A GPU is better equipped for rendering than a CPU. Some 3D programs have a wonderful OpenGL preview that could almost rival the Preview render setting of Vue, and it works in (semi) realtime. Poser 6 for instance.
And the 3D quality of recent games is very, very good. Realtime. Now I would LOVE to see some software that would implement a standard rendering interface (Renderman for instance) using the graphics processor for the rendering calculations. There is some work being done there, but I haven't seen any software yet.
Two major advantages: first, the GPU is easily 10 times as fast as a high end CPU when it comes to rendering, and second, a GPU is much cheaper than a CPU. Imagine a mid to high end PC (around $1500) with multiple PCI-e graphics cards of $500 each (FAST graphics cards!), you could have a renderfarm in a single box that outperforms a 100 node CPU based farm!
Ah, sweet dreams...

Message edited on: 03/01/2006 11:53

The pen is mightier than the sword. But if you literally want to have some impact, use a typewriter

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