What is a GPU? - Explained

NVidia GPU
Image by NVDIA, area highlighted in Red is the Graphical Processing Unit.

GPU is used in many applications from computers, laptops, smart phone, tablet PCs and etc... And GPU has become a mandatory component of a computer system a device which is used as a computer.

What is GPU?

GPU stands for Graphical Processing Unit. The processing of graphical requests of a computer system facilitated by the GPU. GPU does have similar characteristics to CPU or processor. But unlike CPU or the processor, the GPU only process the graphical related problems.

In the early age of the computers, computers didn't wanted much of graphical processing and a powerful processing unit to perform graphical processing because the most of the computers had command line interface to interact. With the time, computers gained better and enhanced graphical user interfaces and computers were started use in wide range media production and as well as gaming industries.

The capability which had by the CPU itself to perform graphical processing left out for better processing and performance which are related to graphics. Though there were some CPU models which were built to perform graphical processing as well as logical processing, they became failed products due to overheating.

GPU is a separate processing unit which is only focusing about graphical processing. Starting from the high end computers to flagship smart phones, uses GPU or a graphical processing unit to perform the graphical processing of the device which required by the user. In addition gaming industry and the video content production industry heavily depending on the powerful GPUs. Due to the nature and design architecture of the GPU, it can perform faster than CPU and solve problems with higher hash rates.

The better and higher hash rates in the GPUs are came by the single board which does have the RAM embedded into the board where the GPU is in. Due to the ultra low latency of reading from RAM, the GPU can perform better and solve much faster and quicker due to the inside architecture of the design.

Due to the higher hash rates, GPUs are used in multiple applications like crypto currency mining and augmented reality. There are multiple chipset makers in the industry for and there are two major GPU makers in the world named NVDIA and AMD.