绘图管线（Graphics pipeline）是3D绘图中用来平行处理的问题，在单一时脉（clock cycle）下，多个管线（pipelines）可具有平行处理的能力。如果有2条管线（pipeline）就能同时处理2道指令，同理，有12条管线能同时处理12道指令。

NVIDIA的绘图芯片Quadro FX 4500有24条绘图管线，故可尽量降低时脉。

In 3D computer graphics, the graphics pipeline or rendering pipeline refers to the sequence of steps used to create a 2D raster representation of a 3D scene. Plainly speaking, once a 3D model has been created, for instance in a video game or any other 3D computer animation, the graphics pipeline is the process of turning that 3D model into what the computer displays. In the early history of 3D computer graphics, fixed purpose hardware was used to speed up the steps of the pipeline through a fixed-function pipeline. Later, the hardware evolved, becoming more general purpose, allowing greater flexibility in graphics rendering as well as more generalized hardware, and allowing the same generalized hardware to perform not only different steps of the pipeline, like in fixed purpose hardware, but even in limited forms of general purpose computing. As the hardware evolved, so did the graphics pipelines, the OpenGL, and DirectX pipelines, but the general concept of the pipeline remains the same.