Microprocessor Design/GPU - Wikibooks, open books for an open world

GPU (Graphics Processing unit) is an electronic chip which is mounted on a video card (Graphics card). Occasionally called visual processing unit (VPU) is a specialized processor that offloads 3D graphics rendering from the microprocessor. The modern GPU is not only a powerful graphics engine but also a highly parallel programmable processor featuring peak arithmetic and memory bandwidth that substantially outpaces its CPU counterpart. The input to the GPU is a list of geometric primitives, typically triangles, in a 3-D world coordinate system. Through many steps, those primitives are shaded and mapped onto the screen, where they are assembled to create a final picture.