Yevgen Barsukov wrote:
> Is it possible to stick it into a Windows based PC and expect OS to
> recognize
> it as 10 CPUs (provided appropriate drivers), or are programs going to
> access it
> completely independently from OS say using OpenCL?
No, the GPU is not a general-purpose processor, even when you call it a
GPGPU (general-purpose GPU). It lacks some im****tant functions that CPUs
have that are needed for basic running of a computer. The CPU is not
busy just doing maths all of the time, let alone floating-point maths.
The CPU runs many non-mathematical tasks, actually it mostly runs
non-mathematical tasks. You wouldn't even be able to boot your computer
up without a CPU.
The GPUs are optional processors specialized in floating-point maths,
which can be employed if a program needs it. The CPU has its own
floating-point facilities available. The CPU floating point is more
precise than GPU floating-point, but the GPU makes up for it in speed.
However, programs will usually not be aware what kind of GPU resources
are available to them, so they will usually use just the CPU
floating-point. So that's why it would be necessary to integrate a
standard interface into the OS to sup****t GPU-based calculations in a
vendor-independent way. Initially, the vendor-independence will be
achieved by standards like OpenCL, but they will be plug-ins into the
OS. Eventually, OpenCL or some other similar standard will have to be
built right into the OS, non-optionally.
Yousuf Khan
|
