GPGPU Explained: How Your GPU is Taking Over CPU Tasks

[Soleron]

Slimebeast said:

Soleron said:

 

Intel's Sandy Bridge hardware decoder, which will be on most future CPUs, outperforms very high-end GPUs on video decoding while using a hundredth of the power. That's a major task the industry hoped GPUs would be useful for that could better be served by fixed hardware.

How can a CPU be that much faster than a GPU at decoding video?

Because it isn't using the general CPU hardware, it's using a tiny fixed-function piece of hardware (a hundredth of the die size or so) that's sole job is to decode.