A gamer wanders through a virtual world rendered in near-
cinematic detail. Seconds later, the screen fills with a 3D
explosion, the result of unseen enemies hiding in physically
accurate shadows. Disappointed, the user exits the game and
returns to a computer desktop that exhibits the stylish 3D look-
and-feel of a modern window manager. Both of these visual
experiences require hundreds of gigaflops of computing perfor-
mance, a demand met by the GPU (graphics processing unit)
present in every consumer PC.
GPUs
As the line between GPUs and CPUs begins to blur,
it’s important to understand what makes GPUs tick.