(Institution Name)
Introduction:
GPUs that stand for Graphics Processing Units (also called visual processing unit) are used for high-speed image creation in applications that require images or videos to be shown on screen. This is done by manipulating and altering of memory. A frame buffer that is intended for output to a display is used for the purpose of image creation. The most common devices that use Graphics Processing Units include cell phones; both smartphones and some common mobile phones, personal computers and laptops, workstations and game consoles.
The newer versions of Graphics Processing Units are very effective, and they manipulate computer graphics and processes images in highly parallel structures. The data is manipulated and calculated in parallel because the CPUs and algorithms process large chunks of data side by side in order to save time. As for the placement of a Graphics Processing Unit, it can be mounted on a variety of hardware. A few notable hardware components that can accommodate it include motherboards and video cards of computer systems and cell phones (NVIDIA, 2016).
A computer system uses certain software for the manipulation and creation of images on the screen of the hardware. These computer systems can be personal computers, mainframes, and mobile phones. Whatever the device may be, it always needs help from a software in order to display images. A graphics application is used for this purpose as it is used as editing software that collects and manipulated data that is converted into image form. Sometimes, a graphic application can be a collection of programs that jointly work in order to manipulate images from processor to the screen. An operating system still remains a compulsion for a graphic application to work. Some application, however, is not meant for creation and manipulation of images and hence they seemingly do not require service of a graphic processing unit. However, such a unit is still used for carrying out non-graphic calculations and with great effect.
Discussion:
The purpose of making such devices and electronic components in computer systems is to achieve milestones in speed and efficiency. The use of more than one graphic processing units is that it helps in dividing the tasks and to make them parallel with each other. Because of this, the same amount of time is used in carrying out multiple tasks as they are being performed on different hardware. The problem of the hardware getting overload hence does not exist. Multiple graphic processing units make swift manipulations of images and display pictures and videos in real time. Not only for the graphical outputs, even for non-graphical outputs, but these units can also be used for enhancing the performance.
The central processing unit of a computer system comprises of a central control and command system that initiates commands and carries out the tasks that it is signaled to perform. It can be considered as the brain of the computer. A graphic processing unit does the same job but in a different manner. Where a central processing unit carries out data calculation activities by making priorities of tasks that it has to perform, and it normally comprises of a few cores that that perform tasks in a sequence. On the contrary, a graphic processing unit does the same job,
only not in sequence but simultaneously. This means that there are not only a few cores involved in the case of a central processing unit whereas the graphic processing unit comprises of several thousand cores that are smaller in size but are still very efficient with respect to time and carry out tasks far quicker.
Graphic Processing Unit is Far More Powerful than Central processing Unit:
The computer systems that use graphic processing units of the lowest quality are still better and quicker in their processing than the processing speed of the central processing units of the highest quality. The ability to accomplish tasks in parallel patterns is the main point of difference in speed of the two alternates. The electronic manufacturers are more inclined towards using graphic processing units rather than central processing units for the same reason. The latest graphic processing units are produced in a way that they have dedicated memory of their own. This means that they cause a lesser burden on the memory of the computer system are run more efficiently and consumes lesser power (Chiappetta, 2014).
One of the biggest advantages of using graphic processing unit is that it has the ability to play and record videos at the same time in real time. This means that as the user is interacting with the computer system in the form of video, the graphic processing unit allows the user to simultaneously view and record the video being played on the screen in real time. Such fast speed is not possible with the traditional central processing units. The most advanced personal computers that have been introduced for the usage by the general public comprise of as many as nine cores. This is no match to the several thousand core count of the graphic processing units that make each and every task performed by the computer systems several times quicker.
The realism of the video display is also one of the biggest advantages of the graphic processing unit as it makes the video play swiftly and in very high quality. The videos that play quicker than what the computer system can easily process or is meant to handle often have several glitches in them and do not play as smooth as is expected. This causes them to lose their print and color from some parts on the screen. The experience of the user gets severely disturbed, and the video quality remains poor. On the contrast, when the video is displayed with the use of graphic processing unit, the video quality is far superior, and the video plays rather smoothly. There are no glitches in the video being played, and the print does not faint, nor does it lose color from various parts (Scientific-Computing, 2016).
The detail in the graphic processing unit supported videos and images are also exemplary in comparison with the videos and images supported by central processing units. In the case of images, the color contrast is sharper with graphic processing units and the minor details of objects are magnified and clearer to the viewer. In the case of video, items and objects appear to be reacting the same way as they would do in the real life, for example, the flickering of candles and wavy movement of curtains, etc. these details if made sharp and the video plays smoothly have a great effect on the viewer’s experiences. Such type of an effect is called the visual impact of this software, and this impact makes a huge difference in the user experiences of certain programs like video games in which the computer system processor has to work extra fast in order to keep up with the input commands and output visuals and audio.
In addition to that, a superior video quality in watching movies enhances the viewer experience. The upgrading of central processing units to graphic processing units has thus enhanced user experiences of visuals and videos making the GPUs an enormous success for commercial usage.
The non-graphic applications also greatly benefit from the support of graphic processing units. In fact, it is safe to say that the non-graphic applications are bigger beneficiaries of graphic processing units than the graphic application. It is a tug of war between the capacity of the processing unit to process information and the bulk of data that is to be processed. In the case of images and videos of high quality that a GPU has to process, the size of data that requires manipulation is relatively much larger than the bulk of data that is required to be manipulated in the case of word processing programs that are normally of a very small size comparatively i.e. few kilobytes. The GPUs have far more processors than the CPUs that are normally used in the computer systems. As many as 128 cores can exist in a GPU that gives a computer system far more computation power than the nine core or seven core central processing units. It is believed that personal computers can be made that can be supported by so many cores that can carry out 320 computations simultaneously. This means that such a system would not possibly get overloaded even if several programs are running on it at the same time and each program has a demand of a lot of computational capacity. For example, when a computer user is watching a video and at the same time downloading several heavy files from the internet and creating power point slides by including large sized images even then the performance of the computer will not suffer.
Non-graphic applications like emails and internet messaging also gets greatly benefit from the usage of graphic processing units. There normally exists a limit of file size that can be attached to an email otherwise an error of overload is displayed. It takes a lot of time to upload files that are heavier than 10MBs and regardless of how good the internet connection is, the processing speed of the computer system fails to keep up and takes up to several minutes to upload or download such a file from the email servers. When computer systems run on graphic processing units, this speed is enhanced manifold, and it becomes very easy and quick to upload and download files from email servers.
Although this might make a difference of a few seconds of upload and download time for each email, but in actuality, it saves several hours of internet and wait over a period of a year for the people who use emails extensively, i.e. because of office obligations or personal communication purpose. Now a day, it is very common to use cloud servers to share and store data. The cloud serves are located in a centralized location where the data of the user downloads upon request and can be used upon command of retrieval after identification for safety purposes. With the support of GPUs, the task of uploading data to these storage drives and retrieving the data becomes far quicker and much more convenient. In certain office tasks like presentations and document projection, slower processing computer systems can take a lot of time to process data and project it on the screen whereas the graphic processing units are very efficient in this regard. The slight pause that comes when the user changes slide in presentation or when he or she tries to open an adobe document does not take place if the computer system is supported by a GPU (Pinola, 2014).
Anti-virus software is mandatory for computer users these days considering the fact that the malware and spyware threats are at its highest. When a computer user connects to a network, the computer becomes vulnerable to several different kinds of viruses and malware. These unwanted programs can latch themselves on the hard drive and many times they become impossible to remove from the system. If the computer processing unit is weak and slow, it can take a lot of time for it to detect the presence of such a program on the computer let alone to remove it. The better and more security providing anti-viruses are quite heavy and upon installation, they slow the entire system down if the option of checking each file that passes the system is checked. In order to improve the computer’s processing speed, the user has to turn this option off hence trading security off for speed. This pretty much kills the purpose of having such heavy-duty antivirus software in the system at the first place. If a computer system is supported by the graphic processing unit, such problems do not occur because the processing speed of the system gets increased several times. Even the heaviest of antivirus and the strictest of security options gets endorsed and complemented by a powerful processing unit comprising of as many as a hundred cores mounted on a graphic processing unit.
It can be very expensive for a computer user to keep their data secure. Many times it is not feasible for a computer user to upload all of their data on a cloud drive because they do not wish to share it with anyone. Alternate options can be chosen that include storage of data in CDs or DVDs that do not cost too much but are not the most secure storage modes. Over the period of time, data in the CDs and DVDs can get distorted, and if a USB drive is summoned to serve the same purpose, then the problem of that drive getting corrupt comes in the question. Hence, there remains no better solution to keep the data stored in bulk amounts and safe than to keep it on the hard drive of the personal computer. Though most computers now a day are designed to store as much as 1 terabytes of data in them but it does not necessarily mean that their processor keeps up with their storage capacity. A 500-gigabyte storage personal computer is bound to perform better if it has a core 3 processor to support its operations as compared to a personal computer with double the storage capacity but the same processing power.
Hence, in order to benefit truly from the extraordinary storage capacity of a personal computer, it must also have a processor that is up to the task of handling so much workload. If a computer hard drive is filled with 500 GBs of data and the user is just accessing a small piece of information, the computer still has to go through all the libraries and locations in the computer system to reach to the specific file that is being asked for. Graphics processing unit gives great benefit to the computer users that have a lot of data to store in their computer systems and have a large capacity bearing memory.
It is beneficial in every regard to use a graphical processing unit in comparison to a central processing unit. For graphical applications like video and images, it makes them sharper in their imagery and makes them play more swiftly and appear more lifelike. At the same time, it enhances the experience of the viewer and player in case of video and gaming applications. For non-graphic applications, the graphic processing unit is equally as much effective as it increases the capacity of the computer to process information and enables it to process several different programs simultaneously. Rather than processing information one after the other, a GPU processes the different portions of information in parallel formation hence winding tasks up simultaneously. The overall performance of computer systems as well as their safety is increased with the help of graphical processing units.
References:
Chiappetta, M. (2014). Tested: Why almost every PC could use a video card upgrade. Retrieved February 1, 2016, from http://www.pcworld.com/article/2139341/tested-why-almost- every-pc-could-use-a-video-card-upgrade.html
NVIDIA. (2016). Graphics Processing Unit (GPU). Retrieved February 1, 2016, from http://www.nvidia.com/object/gpu.html
Pinola, M. (2014). The Performance Benefits of Discrete Video Cards (Even for Non- Gamers). Retrieved February 1, 2016, from http://lifehacker.com/the-performance- benefits-of-discrete-video-cards-even-1561794672
Scientific-Computing. (2016). From CPU to GPU. Retrieved February 1, 2016, from http://www.scientific-computing.com/hpcforscience/feature-gpu.html
