What Is General-Purpose Graphics Processing Unit (GPGPU)?
The General-Purpose Graphics Processing Unit (GPGPU) has been around for a long time. It's been around since the '80s, when IBM and SGI first developed it. Back then, GPUs were used strictly for rendering graphics and were not considered general-purpose processors. But fast-forward to today, and you'll find that GPUs are used for much more than just rendering graphics. Nowadays, they're used in many different applications such as data mining, machine learning, cryptography, high-performance computing (HPC), artificial intelligence (AI), virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and high-definition video games, and so much more! This is all appreciation of the evolution of computer processors over the past few decades CPUs have gotten faster and more powerful, but they're still limited in what they can do with their single-core design, whereas GPUs have become increasingly more powerful multi-cores with hundreds of cores per chip! In virtualized environments or other setups, CPU metrics are still used to describe computer processing, but CPUs are no longer the only option available. The CPU is a large chip that handles all the data coming into and out of your computer. It's like a traffic cop, ensuring your programs and files run smoothly and without interruption. This is why it's called a "central" processor—it's like a hub to which everything else connects. Because it has so much responsibility, it needs to be fast at doing its job—making it very expensive! So when you're building virtual machines on top of your host machine (for example), you may want to use something else besides a CPU. It's no secret that the graphics card is an essential part of your computer. Without it, you'd have to rely on the CPU for all your computing needs – and we all know how much fun that would be. The GPU allows you to play games that require complex 3D rendering and real-time lighting effects. It also authorizes you to watch YouTube videos at 60fps to see every frame of your favorite cat videos!
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