What is the difference between CPU and GPU

 While trying to learn the features of the computer, you may have come across the terms CPU and GPU in many places. So you may have wondered what the difference is between a CPU and a GPU. To summarize briefly, both CPU unit and GPU unit are basic devices of electronic systems and both work for different purposes.

The CPU unit is a microprocessor used to execute commands given by programs. The GPU unit is a processor designed to render images. To have a clearer understanding of the difference between CPU and GPU, let's first take a closer look at what these two units are.

What is CPU?

We can say that the CPU is the brain of your computer or smartphone. Because all operations on your device are performed in this unit. The central processing unit (CPU) is the core hub that handles all the operations on your device. It is vital for CPUs to work fast and to take care of all the operations to be done quickly and to minimize the latency. On your computer or smartphone, opening the device, uninstalling or installing an application, performing copy/paste operations, running the application and all other operations are all performed by the CPU units.

If the delay time is too long, the processing of the transactions will be disrupted and this will disturb the user. Ultimately, the most important thing for CPU units is speed. Therefore, the L1, L2, and L3 caches are located in the nearest physical location where transactions take place. Thanks to these caches, the speed of the processor is increased.

In a computer or smart phone, the CPU unit has a common relationship with all other units. For example, on a computer that uses an SSD instead of an HDD, some operations take place much, much faster.

Because the CPU unit needs to read some information from the hard drive in order to complete some operations. Because the read and write speed of the HDD storage is low, the CPU cannot complete this process quickly together with the HDD. Because it takes a long time to get the information from the HDD volume. 

However, since the read and write speed of the SSD unit is much higher than the HDD unit, the CPU can receive the data it wants faster than the SSD and perform the necessary operations.

What is GPU?

GPU units are also one of the basic components where various operations take place, just like the CPU. All graphics operations on computers or smartphones are handled by GPU units. In other words, all the operations to be done for the image appearing on the screen are performed by the GPU unit.

The GPU unit used to be a non-existent and unnecessary component. However, with the developing technology, especially games, a processor with high efficiency was needed for graphics operations. As a result, the GPU unit appeared. This technology has developed exponentially compared to its first years, and in the coming years, there will be much greater developments, especially in the field of GPU.

Efficiency is very important for the GPU unit. Therefore, the GPU unit has a multi-core structure. Thanks to the parallel operation of this multi-core structure, tremendous efficiency is achieved in the graphics operations to be performed.

Differences between CPU and GPU

CPU and GPU units are the centers that perform various operations. The biggest difference between them is that the CPU is the central processing unit where many different operations are performed in succession while your device is running. GPU, on the other hand, is the graphics processing unit that performs the graphics operations on your device.

The CPU executes many commands with different resources and spaces. It is very important for the CPU that the commands processed are executed quickly. It has the ability to perform many operations at the same time and perform serial operations with low latency.

In the GPU unit, it is very, very important to perform parallel operations at once and to work efficiently in this way. Therefore, the GPU unit runs much faster than the CPU unit.

However, due to the GPU architecture, it can only perform graphics operations. So it cannot be used as a CPU replacement. The CPU unit, on the other hand, is a fast-running unit, although not as fast as the GPU.

However, as in the GPU, it is the central processing unit that processes commands that need to be fulfilled not only for graphics operations, but also in more than one area. Now you better understand the paragraph you are reading and to have a clearer idea of ​​the difference between CPU and GPU.

The operations performed in each new CPU technology are repeated. A new CPU unit is produced by squeezing more transistor elements into the physical size allocated for the CPU. Thanks to the increased number of transistors in a narrow space, the CPU unit, which was introduced as a current technology, can perform operations faster than the previous technology.

In fact, this is the biggest update for the CPU. In other words, the biggest innovation made to improve the CPU unit cannot go beyond increasing the number of transistors. Apart from this, there are no major developments.

However, this does not apply to the GPU. Every year, there are more important developments in GPU units compared to the previous year. For example, in the past years, there have been very important developments in RTX technology. Thanks to this improvement, good graphics results have been achieved that are almost as close to reality with high performance.

From this point of view, there is a very important development in CPU technology, while there is no update, there are great developments in the field of GPU. Developments in the gaming world play an important role in the development of GPU technology. This allows the rapid development of GPU technology. It also promises us that there will be much more impressive developments in GPU units in the coming years.

While the difference between CPU and GPU is watching in this way, if we need to understand and summarize the differences between these two processing units, we can specify the characteristics of the two units in the below;

1. CPU

Central processing unit 

Less core structure 

Low latency 

Capable of performing serial operations 

Can do several operations at the same time

2. GPU 

Graphics Processing Unit 

Multi-core structure 

High efficiency 

Capable of performing parallel processing 

Can do many operations at once

Although there have been great developments in the field of GPU, a multi-core CPU unit is still needed to perform graphics operations. In this regard, Intel and AMD are in great competition for computers. At the same time, Apple, Qualcomm and Mediatek brands are also the biggest names in the market, competing in smart phones.