What is the difference between GPUs and CPUs?

[Jskid]

At a really high level what makes a GPU better at doing certain tasks than a CPU? For example Bitcoin mining and password cracking is better done with video cards and I'm wondering why is there that difference?

 

[dividebyzero]

Basically:
CPU : Small number of computation threads being undertaken at high speed (typically 3+GHz).
GPU : Large number of simple computation threads undertaken at a lower speed (typically ~1GHz)

Hashing is a relatively simple computation set and benefits from the higher number of concurrent instances.

 

[GhostRyder]

CPUs and GPUs are different because they are tasked and built to handle different tasks and do things in a different way.

A CPU is composed of a small number of cores and has high caches designed to handle much more complex tasks (or really any computational task).

A GPU is composed of as much as 1000's of cores that are much simpler but run things in parallel to give you a high speed computational power.

In a sense, a CPU can do anything a gpu can (in some cases not as well) but not vice versa. For example, bitcoin mining is a simple hashing program that is searching through a code sequence (a hash if you will, is a complex mathematical sequence) which more cores can search these sequences therefor more cores can equal more speed.

 

[learninmypc]

I know nothing about either, but http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/G/GPU.html

http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/C/CPU.html

 

[PC nerd]

Thanks for starting this thread, I've been curious about this also.