graphics processing unit (GPU)

A Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) is a graphics processor that handles computationally intensive 2D and 3D graphics calculations. The GPU processor is usually located on graphics cards, sometimes on the motherboard, and increases the efficiency of the central processing unit( CPU) by relieving it of computationally intensive graphics calculations and thus increasing the CPUs computing power.

The computing power of modern GPUs is based on their parallel processing architecture and is comparable to that of central processing units. Dominating in this field are the companies Nvidia, AMD, Intel and AMR with their graphics processors GeForce and Radeon in their various designs. Graphics processors usually work with parallel processing. They can perform multiple computing operations simultaneously and render graphics faster than central processing units. They have chip clock rates of 2 GHz and higher, have memory capacities of over 100 GB and Synchronous Dynamic RAMs( SDRAM) with Graphics Double Data Rate (GDDR5).

Graphics Processor Unit (GPU) GeForce 6200 from NVIDIA

GPUs support a wide variety of graphics processing functions such as antialiasing, rendering, shading, radiosity, mapping, alpha blending, fogging, and ray tracing. Graphics processors have many hundreds of arithmetic units( ALU), which they bundle into groups to form SIMD computing architectures. Each individual SIMD runs the same graphics program in unison, computing vectors, endpoints, and fragments, each for its own data stream. The GPU architecture with its many SIMDs is ideally suited for computing computer graphics. Due to the parallel processing, the computing power of graphics processors is several tens of millions of polygon calculations per second, which corresponds to several hundred billion computing operations per second.

In terms of integration density, graphics processors are built in structure widths of less than 50 nm and consist of several hundred million transistors. The development of the integration density is even somewhat more dynamic than for central processing units.