What does gpu mean. NVIDIA GPU and GPU vs CPU comparison

The motherboard contains many important components of the computer, which have their own unique names: CPU, GPU, HDD, SSD, RAM, and so on. Each of these abbreviations has its own decoding, but at the moment it matters, what is it - GPU?

There is a similar name with this term - this is the CPU. Many inexperienced users confuse these names, which is not true. To begin with, it is worth clarifying that the CPU is the central processing unit, which is the brain of the entire system. This abbreviation is deciphered as follows - Central Processor Unit.

However, it is worth knowing that the GPU is also a processor, only a graphical solution. Its task is to process and display the image. The full name of the abbreviation looks like this - Graphic Processing Unit.

Through these explanations, it can be understood that the GPU is not a central processing unit that processes only graphic type data. It obeys the protocols of the central processor and, unlike it, has its own logical device. Just like the main processor, the graphics one has cores, only there are not tens, but thousands of them. Such a large number of cores is needed to receive and process data associated with rendering and temporary multiple tasks.

Now that you already have a general idea that the GPU is a graphics processor and its task is to process graphic data, you can move on to the enumeration.

At the moment, there are two types of integrated graphics processors - these are integrated into the motherboard and built into the processor.

In the first version, the GPU chip is soldered directly on the motherboard textolite, and few people know that it is a GPU. It looks like an ordinary black chip, which has the brand name, serial number and a combination of numbers that indicates some parameters. Since such graphical solutions do not have their own amount of memory, they borrow this parameter from the RAM, using its amount.

In the case of a chip built into the processor, it is difficult to see it, it will only turn out when parsing the central processor itself. Almost all new generation processors have an additional core, which is called a graphics core. At the same time, the price of the processor does not grow much, but it eliminates the need for a discrete graphics card.

Integrated graphics processors allow you to save on power consumption by several tens of percent, which has a positive effect on heat dissipation. However, there are also significant disadvantages, and one of them is low performance. Such economical graphics are well suited for working with office programs and applications that do not require large capacities.

GPU in a computer - what is it and how to determine it? If earlier two types of integrated graphics processors were presented, then further we can consider the option of a discrete video card. Based on this, it can be understood that GPU is such a designation only for a processor, one of the details of which is a video card. However, this detail is the most important. Also on the video card board are memory chips, capacitors, a power connector or connectors, a protective cover, a radiator and a cooler.

The difference between an integrated and a discrete video card is that the second one is much more powerful and productive than the built-in version. Firstly, there is a certain amount of memory, which directly affects the speed of drawing objects. Secondly, its parameters include an expansion bus, the bit depth of which allows you to increase the throughput for data transfer.

Such graphics adapters require additional power to simply start up and produce a high-quality image. Despite all the power, there are office options for discrete graphics cards, which are not much different from integrated counterparts. Game options are more powerful in structure and potential, but consume much more energy.

Temperature regime

For better functioning, you need to know what a GPU is in a computer and its temperature. How to cool the integrated and discrete GPU? To cool the integrated GPU, it is enough to place fans in the case, while discrete options have their own cooling system. Depending on how many fans are above the chip, it will be clear how well the chip is cooled.

The cooling system of the video card is quite simple - the chip, with the help of thermal paste applied to it, comes into contact with the heat sink tubes, they go to the radiator, which is cooled by a cooler.

The operating temperature of the chip is no more than 70 degrees, a further increase in temperature can be considered overheating. In order to prevent overheating of the video card, it is enough to clean the video card from dust in a timely manner, while changing the thermal paste. In order to find out the current state of the temperature in the video card, just run the appropriate programs, for example, AIDA 64. There you can see the temperature not only of the graphics adapter, but of the entire system.

GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) is an electronic device designed to build and process a 2D or 3D image and then display it on the screen. GPUs are widely used in desktop computer systems, mobile phones, servers and game consoles.

The use of GPUModern graphics chips are installed on computer graphics cards or integrated into motherboards in order to save space occupied by the computer.

GPUs allow efficient processing of computer graphics, which makes them the most used type of chips for displaying graphic information on the screen. The term GPU was first used in 1999 by Nvidia at the presentation of the GeForce 256 video card, which at that time was the company's most productive board. The processor of the model could process about 10 million graphic polygons per second. Functions The GPU consists of special transistors, most of which are used to process three-dimensional images. Initially, GPUs were created to speed up the construction of textures and the speed of processing graphic polygons by computers, but later the graphics cores learned to perform geometric calculations, which also accelerated the speed and quality of displaying images. Recent developments in the GPU include the activation of programmable shader support, a technology to reduce the effects of aliasing of image elements on top of each other. Also, new graphics processors are able to more accurately reproduce colors on the monitor. Modern video cards support video streaming from various sources connected through special interfaces. Types of GPU Graphics cards can be divided into three types: discrete, integrated and hybrid. Discrete video cards are installed in a separate slot on the motherboard of a computer or portable device (laptop) through a special interface (for example, PCI-Express or AGP). This type of GPU has the most powerful performance characteristics due to the special structure of the video module and its power performance. Also, if necessary, a discrete video card can be easily replaced with a board of another model. Technologies such as SLI or CrossFire allow multiple video cards to be combined to further improve the performance of the graphics subsystem. Integrated GPUs are used in portable devices and have modest computing performance due to the small size of the board, as well as the complexity of their cooling systems and structural features. Hybrid video cards are a new class of adapters designed to replace built-in and discrete modules. The new technology is being created to increase the speed of data exchange with the system RAM and processor to improve graphics performance in general. A hybrid card can be built into the motherboard, but still work on the basis of PCI-Express discrete graphics technology.

Hello friends.

Do you like to play realistic games on your computer? Or watch a movie in a quality that clearly shows every little thing? So, you must imagine what gpu is in a computer. Do you know anything about him? My article will help you get rid of this misunderstanding ;-).

GPU is not a graphics card

A combination of letters unknown to many implies the concept of "graphics processing unit", which in our language means a graphics processor. It is he who is responsible for reproducing the picture on your hardware, and the better its characteristics, the better the image will be.

Always thought that these functions performs? Of course, you are right, but it is a complex device, and its main component is just a graphics processor. It can also exist autonomously from the vidyuhi. We'll talk about this a little later.

GPU: not to be confused with CPU

Despite the similarity of abbreviations, do not confuse the subject of our conversation with (Central Processor Unit). Yes, they are similar, both in name and function. The latter can also reproduce graphics, however, it is weaker in this matter. However, they are completely different devices.

They differ in architecture. The CPU is a multi-purpose device that is responsible for all the processes in the computer. To do this, he needs several, with the help of which he sequentially processes one task after another.

In turn, the GPU was originally designed as a specialized device designed to perform graphics rendering, processing textures and complex images at high speed. For such purposes, it was equipped with a multi-threaded structure and many cores so that it could work with large amounts of information at a time, and not sequentially.

In view of this advantage, leading manufacturers of video adapters have released models in which GPUs can become an advanced replacement for the central one. The nVidia brand calls such a device the GTX 10xx, while its main competitor AMD calls it the RX.

Types of graphics processors

So that you can navigate the GPU market, I suggest that you familiarize yourself with the types of this device:

• Discrete. Included in the video adapter. Connects to the motherboard through a dedicated connector (most often PCIe or AGP). Has its own RAM. Are you a demanding gamer or do you work with complex graphics editors? Take a discrete model.

• Integrated (IGP). It used to be soldered into the motherboard, now it is built into the central processor. Initially, it was not suitable for playing realistic games and heavy graphics programs, but new models cope with these tasks. Still, keep in mind that such chips are somewhat slower, because they do not have personal RAM and access the CPU memory.

• Hybrid graphics processing. This is 2 in 1, that is, when both the first type and the second type of GPU are installed on the computer. Depending on the tasks performed, either one or the other is included in the work. However, there are laptops in which 2 types of devices can work at once.
• external type. As you might guess, this is a graphics processor located outside the computer. Most often, this model is chosen by laptop owners who find it difficult to cram a discrete video card into their hardware, but really want to get decent graphics.

How to choose?

When choosing a video adapter for yourself, pay attention to the following characteristics:

• Clock frequency. Specified in megahertz. The higher the number, the more information per second the device can process. True, not only it affects its performance. Architecture also matters.
• The number of computing blocks. They are designed to process tasks - shaders responsible for vertex, geometric, pixel and universal calculations.

• The speed of filling (fillrate). This parameter can tell how fast the GPU can draw the picture. It is divided into 2 types: pixel (pixel fill rate) and texture (texel rate). The first one is affected by the number of ROP blocks in the processor structure, and the second - by texture units (TMU).

Usually in the latest GPU models there are fewer first blocks. They write the pixels calculated by the video adapter into buffers and mix them, which is cleverly called blending. TMUs perform sampling and filtering of textures and other information required for scene alignment and general calculations.

geometric blocks

Previously, no one paid attention to them, because virtual games had simple geometry. This parameter began to be taken into account after the appearance of tessellation in DirectX 11. Don't understand what I mean? Let's go in order.

It is an environment (set of tools) for writing games. To help you navigate the topic, I will say that the latest version of the product is the 12th, which was released in 2015.

Tessellation is the division of the plane into parts to fill them with new information, which increases the realism of the game.

Thus, if you want to plunge headlong into the atmosphere of Metro 2033, Crysis 2, HAWX 2, etc., consider the number of geometric blocks when choosing a GPU.

Memory

Ready to get a new video card? So, you need to take into account a few more characteristics of the RAM:

• Volume. The importance of RAM is somewhat overrated, as not only its capacity, but also its type and properties affect the card's performance.
• Tire width. This is a more significant parameter. The wider, the more information the memory can send to the chip and vice versa in a certain time. A minimum of 128 bits is required to play games.
• Frequency. It also determines the throughput of the RAM. But keep in mind that memory with a 256-bit bus and a frequency of 800 (3200) MHz works more efficiently than with 128 bits at 1000 (4000) MHz.
• Type of. I will not burden you with unnecessary information, but I will only name the types that are optimal for today - these are GDDR 3 and 5 generations.

A word about cooling

Thinking of installing a powerful chip? Immediately take care of additional cooling in the form of radiators, coolers, and if you are going to regularly squeeze all the juice out of the device, you can think about the liquid system.

In general, keep an eye on the temperature of the vidyuhi. The program can help you with this. GPU-Z etc., which, in addition to this parameter, will tell you everything about the device.

Of course, modern video cards are equipped with a protective system that seems to prevent overheating. Different models have different temperature limits. On average, it is 105 ° C, after which the adapter turns itself off. But it is better to save an expensive device and provide auxiliary cooling.

CPUs and GPUs are very similar, both are made from hundreds of millions of transistors and can process thousands of operations per second. But how exactly do these two important components of any home computer differ?

In this article, we will try to tell in a very simple and accessible way what is the difference between a CPU and a GPU. But first we need to consider these two processors separately.

The CPU (Central Processing Unit or Central Processing Unit) is often referred to as the "brain" of a computer. There are about a million transistors inside the central processing unit, with the help of which various calculations are performed. Home computers typically have processors having 1 to 4 cores with clock speeds of approximately 1 GHz to 4 GHz.

The processor is powerful because it can do everything. A computer is capable of performing a task because the processor is capable of performing that task. Programmers have been able to achieve this thanks to the wide instruction sets and huge lists of functions shared across modern CPUs.

What is a GPU?

GPU (Graphics Processing Unit or Graphic Processing Unit) is a specialized type of microprocessor optimized for very specific computing and graphics display. The GPU runs at a lower clock speed than the CPU, but has many more processor cores.

You can also say that the GPU is a specialized CPU made for one specific purpose - video rendering. During rendering, the GPU performs simple mathematical calculations a huge number of times. The GPU has thousands of cores that will work at the same time. Although each GPU core is slower than the CPU core, it is still more efficient for performing the simple mathematical calculations needed to display graphics. This massive parallelism is what makes the GPU capable of rendering the complex 3D graphics required by modern games.

Difference between CPU and GPU

The GPU can only do a subset of what the CPU can do, but it does so at an incredible speed. The GPU will use hundreds of cores to perform time-critical calculations on thousands of pixels and render complex 3D graphics in the process. But to achieve high speeds, the GPU must perform repetitive operations.

Take, for example, Nvidia GTX 1080. This video card has 2560 shader cores. Thanks to these cores, the Nvidia GTX 1080 can execute 2560 instructions or operations in a single clock cycle. If you want to make the picture 1% brighter, then the GPU can handle it without much difficulty. But the quad-core Intel Core i5 CPU can only execute 4 instructions per cycle.

However, CPUs are more flexible than GPUs. Central processing units have a larger set of instructions, so they can perform a wider range of functions. CPUs also operate at higher maximum clock speeds and have the ability to control the input and output of computer components. For example, the CPU can integrate with virtual memory, which is required to run a modern operating system. This is exactly what the GPU will not be able to do.

GPU computing

Even though GPUs are designed for rendering, they are capable of more. Graphics processing is just a kind of repetitive parallel computing. Other tasks such as Bitcoin mining and password cracking rely on the same kinds of massive datasets and simple mathematical calculations. That is why some users use video cards for non-graphical operations. This phenomenon is called GPU Computation or GPU computing.

conclusions

In this article, we compared CPU and GPU. I think it has become clear to everyone that the GPU and CPU have similar goals, but are optimized for different calculations. Write your opinion in the comments, I will try to answer.