Getting Started with GPGPU First card to get?

Accelerated Computing CUDA CUDA Programming and Performance
1

Hi all,

I’m looking to dip my toe in the GPGPU waters, and am trying to decide what card to start with. I’m looking to eventually develop some products for the Tesla series, but that’s a big investment for a side project.

Right now, I’m leaning towards just getting a 8800GTS for my home PC–am I correct that this is the lowest cost that puts me on the same architecture as the Tesla? (Besides, it would be nice for my home PC to still have, you know, a video output!)

From a programmers point of view, are the 8800 series identical to the Tesla’s, except for performance and memory tuning? Should code written for an 8800 run directly on a Tesla, do you need to recompile, or are there portability concerns?

Thanks for any advice!

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Code written on an 8800 will directly run on a Tesla. A Tesla is just an 8800 GPU with more memory and no video outs. The GTS is a good balance of price vs. performance with only 12 multiprocessors compared to GTX which has 16.

All lower end 8000 series are much, much slower but do have additional features like atomic integer operations.