Programming Massively Parallel Processors, 2nd Edition

Chapter 1

Introduction

Chapter Outline

1.1 Heterogeneous Parallel Computing

1.2 Architecture of a Modern GPU

1.3 Why More Speed or Parallelism?

1.4 Speeding Up Real Applications

1.5 Parallel Programming Languages and Models

1.6 Overarching Goals

1.7 Organization of the Book

References

Microprocessors based on a single central processing unit (CPU), such as those in the Intel Pentium family and the AMD Opteron family, drove rapid performance increases and cost reductions in computer applications for more than two decades. These microprocessors brought GFLOPS, or giga (10¹²) floating-point operations per second, to the desktop and TFLOPS, or tera (10¹⁵) floating-point operations per second, to cluster servers. This relentless drive for performance ...