Engineer 'builds a GPU from scratch' in two weeks(tomshardware.com) |
Engineer 'builds a GPU from scratch' in two weeks(tomshardware.com) |
I would call it an array processor.
Terminology on this is confusing - NVIDIA calls their A100 a "GPU" for example but I can't tell if any of the graphics bits like samplers and ROPs are even in that thing - though I did learn it has a hardware JPEG decoder.
Really nomenclature is a mess, everyone hops on the next big term until you're not sure what it means anymore.
Just the search terms suffice, too late to edit though so response here
And no, GPGPU is a bloody stupid term.
Now we're in the 2020s and GPUs are all about being Generative Processing Units thanks to the "AI" craze.
No one; it's just something Dalewyn is making up.
But that aside: Surely you've heard of GPGPU (General Purpose Graphics Processing Unit), a term I again call bloody stupid. Just call it a General Processing Unit in that case. More recently, the amount of money changing hands in furious bids for more Generative Processing Units to fuel the "AI" craze absolutely dwarves actual graphical applications and even the general use cases.
I'm merely calling the bird that quacks like a duck a duck, not a swan duck bird.
Besides, we're apparently here talking about GPUs that can't do graphics.
Personally, if we could use a new acronym all together I would prefer to just call them PPUs: Parallel Processing Units. That way we won't ever have to rename them ever again as the sands of time shift onwards.
A search for the use of 'Generative Processing Unit' can reveal that the expression may be far from widespread. Nonetheless, GPUs today are importantly that. Explicit adoption of that expression matters little in this context - it is not the point. In fact, I initially misread the text in the post as "General Processing Unit", and it still made sense.