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What is a teraflop?
In This Article
If you’ve ever followed the launch of a new games console or graphics card, you’ve likely come across the term ‘teraflop’ (or TFLOP). But what does it actually mean?
We’ve created this guide to give you a thorough explanation of the term, and explain why it’s an important factor to consider when purchasing new hardware.
What is a teraflop?
A FLOP stands for ‘floating point operation per second’, which is a calculated measure of computer performance.
This can be calculated by multiplying aGPU‘s number of shader cores by the peak clock speed and the number of instructions per clock. This provides a number that’s more representative of the GPU’s overall performance compared to the likes of clock speeds and memory size.
And when we see a figure such as 10 teraflops, it’s informing us that the GPU can process ten trillion floating point operations per second.
Theoretically, then, a higher teraflop should signal a faster performance. We can see this by comparing PlayStation consoles, with thePS4featuring a 1.84 teraflop GPU, and thePS5seeing a far better 10.28 teraflop GPU.
However, it’s not always that straightforward, as there are so many important factors to consider for a graphics performance, especially since GPUs are becoming more complex.
For example, the PS5 has a lower teraflop GPU than theXbox Series X(12 teraflops) yet Sony’s console still delivers a similar performance, and sometimes even exceeds it. The same is true when comparing AMD and Nvidia graphics cards, especially with emerging technology such asray tracingmaking it even more complicated.
Certain games will also be influenced more (or less) than others by the TFLOP performance, emphasizing how variable a GPU’s performance can be and why looking at specs alone won’t always reflect the resulting game’s frame rate.
With all of this in mind, we strongly recommend that anyone looking to buy a games console or graphics card should always read reviews to get an idea of graphics performance rather solely relying on specs such as teraflops.
You can check out ourBest Games ConsoleandBest Graphics Cardlists by clicking the relevant links.
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Formerly the Staff Writer at Stuff Magazine, Ryan’s been writing about tech since he graduated from Cardiff University. At Trusted Reviews he is focused on everything computer-related, giving him a va…
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Why trust our journalism?
Founded in 2003, Trusted Reviews exists to give our readers thorough, unbiased and independent advice on what to buy.
Today, we have millions of users a month from around the world, and assess more than 1,000 products a year.
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
