Everything You Need To Know About CUDA Cores in 2024

By: Editorial Team

NVIDIA CUDA cores are one of the ever-present entries on every specification sheet of Nvidia graphics card. Here’s everything you need to know about NVIDIA CUDA cores.

What Are NVIDIA CUDA Cores?

NVIDIA CUDA (Compute Unified Device Architecture) is a specialized programming model and parallel computing platform that is used to perform complex operations, computations and tasks with greater performance.

They are parallel processors which work similar to computer processors. Every Nvidia GPU contains CUDA Cores. The number of CUDA cores in Nvidia Graphic cards are found in the thousands.

cuda cores
CUDA Cores

The higher the number of CUDA cores the greater the computing power of the GPU. Also the more powerful the graphics card the greater number of CUDA cores it has.

NVIDIA CUDA cores are important and without them NVIDIA graphics cards are pretty much useless. CUDA cores do a lot and have a direct effect on how powerful the graphics card will be.

Several applications take advantage of the CUDA cores found in Nvidia cards. To name a few – Python, MATLAB, Fortran, C, Adobe, etc.

In gaming, CUDA cores are responsible for processing and solving game graphics calculations that are rendered and presented visually to the gamer.

Rendering of scenery, drawing character models and shading in an environment are all examples of in-game tasks that have been completed by CUDA core processing.

Does CUDA Cores Affect Gaming?

Yes, CUDA cores affect GPU and gaming performance. Just like how in CPUs we have single-core, dual-core, quad-core, Hexa-core, and threads it is no brainer that the higher number of cores in a CPU processor has the greatest performance.

What Are NVIDIA CUDA Cores

The same principle applies to CUDA cores. The higher number of CUDA cores there the greater the performance.

Although, CUDA cores can’t be compared to CPU cores though because a single CPU core is much more powerful than a single CUDA core.

That is why you see the number of CUDA cores in powerful graphics cards numbering in the thousands.

Benchmarks have shown that the more CUDA cores an Nvidia graphics card have the greater the GPU performance.

It should be noted that to do a proper comparison they should have the same architecture.

What Is GPU Architecture?

The architecture is the way various components of the GPU are put together so that they are interrelated to each other.

The RTX 30-series is based on NVIDIA AMPERE architecture whiles the RTX 20-series is based on NVIDIA Turing architecture.

For example, the RTX 3080 Ti has 10240 Nvidia CUDA cores whiles the RTX 3080 has 8704 Nvidia CUDA cores.

That is 1,536 CUDA cores greater than the RTX 3080.

CUDA Cores Vs Stream Processors

The cores in NVIDIA graphics cards are called CUDA and cores in AMD graphic cards are called stream processors. They basically do the same job just with different naming by different companies.

Comparing their CUDA cores and Stream processors is somewhat difficult because they are from:

  • Different companies
  • They have different graphics card architectures

Benchmarks and graphics cards versus videos on YouTube do a much better job at the comparison and offer accurate and realistic results. Make sure to check such information if you are looking for a graphics card or laptop to buy.

NVIDIA CUDA Cores vs Clock Speed

If it comes down to it always go for the graphics card with the highest clock speed and VRAM. These two are very important if you want to quickly determine how powerful a graphics card is.

But as mentioned earlier the more powerful the graphics card the greater number of CUDA cores it is going to have. The same applies to the clock speed and VRAM.

Most times graphics cards that have high VRAM and clock speeds are the powerful ones.

The Nvidia GTX 1080 has a VRAM of 8 GB and a base clock speed of 1607 MHz, 2560 CUDA cores while the RTX 2080 Ti has a base clock speed of 1350 MHz, 4352 CUDA cores and 11GB of VRAM.

If you are able to afford it always go with the most powerful graphics card you can get because its base clock speed, VRAM and CUDA cores are always going to be high enough to power through most tasks.

Make sure to check videos and benchmarks of the performance of the graphics cards you are interested in to give you a realistic and accurate picture of how the GPU performs.

rtx 3090
RTX 3090 OC

The Takeaway

The number of CUDA cores is always related to the performance of the GPU. The more powerful the GPU the greater number of CUDA cores it has. These two are always related.

Once you know that you can somewhat tell how powerful a graphics card is depending on the amount of CUDA cores it has.

Also, powerful graphics cards have higher base clock speeds and VRAM.

Now you know what CUDA cores are and what they mean in graphics cards. No need to be confused anymore when looking at the spec sheet of a new graphics card.