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What can a cpu core do that a gpu core can't do? (alien.top)

submitted 9 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Afaik, gpu cores a very stripped down cpu cores that do basic math, but what sort of math can cpus do that gpus can't

I'm talking, cpu core vs Tensor/Cuda cores.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (4 children)

I mean if you're creative enough, probably nothing.

This is kinda like asking what can I do on a lathe that I can't do on a mill. It's more what's better suited to be done on one or the other.

CPUs are more generalised; they have a deep and complex instruction set and feature list. While GPUs are shallower and far more specialised, but do tasks that parallellalise more readily... Like calculating a metric shitload of triangles.

You can see CPUs used to 'push pixels' in older computers since that's all they had.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Follow up question, what allowed CPUs before the advent of eGPU/dGPU's to output video, or what prevents them from doing so now?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

You've probably seen this in older games already, hardware vs software rendering. Software rendering just asks your CPU to perform the same calculations your GPU would normally take care of. It still works today but games have such astronomically high performance requirements that most don't even give you the option.

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