CPU vs GPU | Simply Explained
Blog / CPU vs GPU | Simply Explained
So what is the difference between a CPUs and a GPUs?TL;DR Summary CPU A Central Processing Unit is the primary component of a computer that handles all types of computing tasks required for the operating system and applications to run and it does so serially and it tries to do so with minimal latencySome of its main internal components of a CPU include:Modern CPUs have many cores where each core of a CPU is designed to be a self-contained independent processing unitGPU The arrival of computer graphics and animation resulted in the first compute-intensive workloads that CPUs were simply not designed to handle.GPUs were originally invented to help render images on display devices.Mechanically, a GPU is similar to a CPU, in that it is made up of many of the same components, such as the ALU, the control unit, the cache, etc.A GPU can manage very high throughput and this is due to their enormous amount of ALUs. In addition, GPUs include hundreds if not thousands of cores that can manage several processing threads simultaneously.Because GPUs are best suited for repetitive and highly-parallel computing tasks, GPUs also excel in fields such machine learning, financial simulations, and has been a driving force behind the advancement of AI.Key Differences
- A CPU (Central Processing Unit) is the primary component of a computer that handles all types of computing tasks required for the operating system and applications to run and it tries to do so with minimal latency and is often referred to as the brains of a computer.
- GPU (Graphics Processing Units) as the name suggests was was originally invented to help render images on display devices.
- the fundamental difference between GPUs and CPUs is that CPUs are ideal for performing sequential tasks (i.e. a single task is performed at a time) quickly, while GPUs use parallel processing to compute tasks simultaneously with greater speed and efficiency.
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- Arithmetic Logic Unit (ALU)
- Control Unit
- Cache