What are TeraFlops and what do they bring me as a gamer?

The performance of graphics cards or processors is specified in TeraFlops (Tflops). But what does TeraFlops actually mean and what do they bring me as a gamer? Does my new graphics card have to have a lot of TeraFlops or are other factors more important for good performance? MeinMMO explains it to you.

Hardware manufacturers often compare their devices with one another. TeraFlops in particular play a role here. And these TeraFlops regularly ensure major discussions among users. For example, fans had bitterly argued whether an Xbox Series X with more flops was faster than a PS5.

But what do these often huge numbers say about a game console or a desktop PC? And are these numbers actually good for comparing gaming?

MeinMMO explains to you what is behind the TeraFlops and what they mean for gamers.

What are FLOPs actually?

A FLOP is an acronym and means “Floating Point Operations Per Second”. This term is often used for graphics cards and processors.

A FLOP describes how many floating point calculations (additions and subtractions) the device can do per second. “Tera” is a mathematical prefix, so we are in TeraFLOPs in a range of 10 to the power of 12, so a huge number: about a trillion flops.

What do these numbers mean? To put it simply: the larger the number, the more powerful the computer or console, because the system can do more arithmetic steps per second. But that is only a theoretical value for now.

How are FLOPs calculated? The number of FLOPs describes the performance of the entire architecture, consisting of:

• The main processor or the graphics chip, which usually sits on the socket of the mainboard or is otherwise mounted.
• The bus or Back Panel Unight Sockets, on which, for example, the main memory is located and which also influences the computing speed
• The compiler that is responsible for calculating and processing the data. The compiler converts the source code into executable code that the main processor can use.

Graphics processors work a little differently than processors. Usually, the theoretical processing power of graphics cards is given in single precision (FP32).

device	Number of TeraFlops
Xbox Series S	4,0
PS5	10,15
Xbox Series X	12,15
Radeon RX 6800 XT	20,74
GeForce RTX 3080	29,8

Do I have a great computer with a lot of TeraFlops?

Do many FLOPs mean a lot of performance? The number of FLOPs only describes the number of calculation steps on paper that the processor or graphics card could manage per second.

Most of the time, the best possible scenario (best-case estimate) is assumed here. In practice, the theoretical values ​​are almost never achieved. Because in practice it depends on where your computer is, how good the cooling is and what else you have installed.

Flops ignore the following things: In addition, not all factors are included and other components also play a role

• The video memory of the graphics card or the cache of the processor is not mapped by the flops.
• In addition, each game relies on a different game engine, which in turn has different expectations of your hardware.
• The general architecture of the hardware also plays a role. Depending on how efficient this architecture is, the more performance you ultimately get.

If you are interested in the performance or the performance of your system, then we would give you another tip on the way.

Look at the performance on FPS and not on TeraFlops

TeraFlops only describe a theoretical performance that a graphics card, processor or computer can achieve.

This performance is hardly achieved in normal everyday life. It’s like if you drive a vehicle with 450 hp, but you can / will never actually use this power.

You should pay attention to this: In gaming, it doesn’t count how many TeraFlops your graphics card or processor can manage in the end. Much more important is how many FPS you get in the game at the end. Because the more FPS you have in the game, the smoother the games run for the human eye.

You should therefore use benchmark software for the actual performance, which will ultimately show you how much performance is in your system.

Games should soon run smoother on the Xbox Series X – ideal for shooters