Chapter 3
GPU / CPU
The GPU is a specialized hardware component that can process images, videos and massive amounts of data really fast. This operation is known as throughput and is measured by the amount of data processed in a specific unit of time. The CPU, on the other hand, manages resources and is responsible for the computer’s operations.
Although the CPU can’t process huge amounts of data like the GPU, it can process
many sequential tasks (one after another) really fast. The time necessary to process a task is known as latency.
The ideal setup includes low latency and high throughput. Low latency allows for the serial execution of queued tasks, so the CPU can execute the commands without the system becoming slow or unresponsive — and high throughput lets the GPU render videos and games asynchronously without stalling the CPU. Because the GPU has a highly parallelized architecture specialized in doing the same task repeatedly and with little or no data transfers, it can process larger amounts of data.
