[Please (kindly) let me know if this is not the place for this question]
I'm hoping to learn about GPU programming, but as a college student, I've a quite limited budget. I'm wondering whether I should buy a modestly more expensive GPU that uses GDDR5 memory, or if DDR3 memory is sufficient.
I can see some potential pros and cons:
- GDDR5 is standard in nearly all but the lowest-end GPUs, so I'd be getting experience that would transfer to most popular cards
- However, is it possible that learning with DDR3 memory will only help me learn to be more efficient, thus my skills would translate (probably with a bit more difficulty) to even better programming abilities on a higher-end GPU
Any advice or words of wisdom?
Note that I don't want the card for gaming purposes (although I would gladly use it in such a capacity, but that would be a happy by-product of having it around to learn to program on). I also don't really care too much about being able to run programs faster on the GPU; I mainly want the ability to learn how to program on a GPU. I'm currently considering only NVIDIA GPUs, as I've learned a smidgen about CUDA programming.