No worries mate - glad there are other people on here who also find it interesting.
On a sort-of related note, I was discussing GPU technology with a friend recently (who is an avid gamer, but not particularly clued-up on technology) and trying to explain how complex and powerful current GPU's actually are. I was also trying to explain why true 4k gaming at ultra-high framerates is still a little way off (for the mainstream at least), and why the perceived 'jumps' in graphics fidelity with each new generation of hardware (console or otherwise) is not so significant as before. Despite being hard work (!), I worked out a rough metric detailing the number of instructions required to render an image at 1920x1080p at 60fps. The numbers are quite staggering...
If we assume the game engine in question is something cutting-edge like the CryEngine3 or UE4 (running on a top-end GPU setup) an individual pixel can easily require 220 instructions to calculate the final colour that it is eventually plotted to screen. A pixel, in this case, typically requires somewhere in the range of 50-400 instructions depending on the complexity and composition of the scene, and the shaders being used. So let's assume the 'average' value of 220 instructions per pixel. A 1920x1080 screen has 2073600 pixels.
So, a single frame render can feasibly require (2073600 x 220) =
456,192,000 instructions.
Hence, assuming a frame rate of 60fps, the GPU is performing some (456192000 * 60) =
27,371,520,000 instructions per second
Of course, this is a very 'back of a napkin' type calculation, but it kinda gives some insight into the processing power required to realise a virtual world through a cutting-edge game engine.
Just out of interest, let's assume a consumer format 4k display (3840 x 2160) is being realised at the same framerate (60fps) and with the same level of instruction complexity (220 per pixel)...
Pixel count = (3840 x 2160) = 8294400 pixels
Single frame render requires (8294400 x 220) =
1,824,768,000 instructions.
Assuming a frame rate of 60fps (1824768000 * 60) =
109,486,080,000 instructions per second
(Sorry)