Computer Science · A1.1 Computer Hardware and Operation

A1.1.2 — The Role of the GPU

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IB DP Computer Science — A1 Computer fundamentals — Computer hardware and operation | SL | A1.1.2

📋 What You Will Learn

  • Describe the role of a graphics processing unit (GPU) in a computer system
  • Describe the architectural features that make GPUs suitable for specific tasks
  • Explain why massively parallel hardware suits graphics rendering and other complex computations
  • Identify real-world scenarios that rely on GPUs: video games, AI, large simulations
  • Outline how the CPU offloads suitable work to the GPU

🎨 Why This Matters Imagine painting a mural. One master artist (a CPU core) is superb at complex, varied decisions but paints one brushstroke at a time. A GPU is like a thousand art students, each assigned one small tile and

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More notes on A1.1 Computer Hardware and Operation

  1. 01A1.1.9 — Cloud Computing Services: SaaS, PaaS and IaaS
  2. 02A1.1.3 — CPU vs GPU: Architecture, Performance and Cooperation
  3. 03A1.1.1 — CPU Components: Functions and Interactions
  4. 04A1.1.8 — The Concept of Compression
  5. 05A1.1.5 — The Fetch, Decode and Execute Cycle
  6. 06A1.1.4 — Primary Memory: RAM, ROM, Cache and Registers
  7. 07A1.1.6 — Pipelining in Multi-Core Architectures
  8. 08A1.1.7 — Secondary Memory Storage: Internal and External