Graphics Processing Unit (GPU)

• All computers have basic graphics chips installed on their motherboard
  • These are fine for everyday use
• Video games require a lot of processing power
  • e.g. 3D graphics
• Specialist graphics card can be installed
• Graphics card includes a GPU
  • Designed to handle graphics and video much faster than the CPU itself
• if an application is making intense use of graphics or video, a GPU will improve performance considerably
• The CPU will send graphics-related tasks to the GPU
• Many graphics tasks can be run in parallel (simultaneously)
  • e.g. setting the colour of independent pixels on a screen
  • To take advantage of this, the GPU can issue a single instruction and act on many pixels at the same time
  • This is an example of Single Instruction Multiple Data processing

A GPU would be better suited to rendering a change in lighting for the surrounding objects when the torches are switched on

• The image is made up of a series of pixels
• Each pixel is a binary number representing the colour
• When the torch is turned on, the colour of the pixels representing the torch need to all change to the same colour
• All the surrounding pixels need to have their brightness changed by applying a mathematical calculation to the binary number representing each pixel
• All of these calculations can be done in parallel
• These sorts of mass calculations typically associated

fill this in later

Uses of GPUs

• Graphics for gamers, designers, 3D animators
• SIMD - the ability to process the same instruction across multiple pieces of data at one time
  • scientists and engineers
  • modelling physical systems (e.g. weather)
  • audio processing
  • cryptographic mining
  • machine learning

Although installing a graphics card will lead to improvements in computer performance there are some issues that need to be considered

• Graphics cards can be expensive
• Graphics cards do not improve CPU performance on all tasks, only ones related to graphics and video
• Graphics cards use a lot of power and this might mean that the computer also needs to be fitted with a more powerful power supply. The larger power supply will add further cost.
• Because graphics cards use a lot of power they need a cooling system. Cooling fans are noisy but the cheapest option - so you may have to make your computer sound louder than it was before the graphics card was installed.