GPU as a General Purpose Computing Resource

In the last few years, GPUs(Graphics Processing Units) have made rapid development. Their ever-increasing computing power and decreasing cost have attracted attention from both industry and academia. In addition to graphics applications, researchers are interested in using them for general purpose computing. Recently, NVIDIA released a new computing architecture, CUDA (compute united device architecture), for its GeForce 8 series, Quadro FX, and Tesla GPU products. This new architecture can change fundamentally the way in which GPUs are used. In this paper, we study the programmability of CUDA and its GeForce 8 GPU and compare its performance with general purpose processors, in order to investigate its suitability for general purpose computation.