does GPUs have multiple cores like CPUs?

[SkeeterUK]

Never really knew this question but with mobiles having quad core GPUs these days it got me thinking surely desktop PC GPUs must be like that or better these days. But I'm unsure. The only thing I know is 690 cards etc have 2 GPUs in but that's actually full cores. Not 1 GPU with multiple cores. Is it.

Are GPUs single core and if so why hasn't GPUs gone the same way as CPUs being multi core. If they already are and this is a daft question then nvm and ignore.

 

[new boy]

They are different architectures and it depends on what you call a core really.

GPUs are built wide to power though parallel loads, that's the kind of load that high core count CPUs would be used for, so they are built to excel at the kind of tasks you might design a 100 core cpu for.

I've explained it badly, but basicly, yes, depending on what you define as a core.

EDIT - trying to make it make sense

 

[Xelene]

GPU's have hundreds of very specialised cores. Intel spent a while chasing down making them more generic with Larabee but in the end abandoned it.

 

[SkeeterUK]

Hmm I see so they are as powerful as multi core would have been but keeping with a single core design then.

 

[new boy]

Hmm I see so they are as powerful as multi core would have been but keeping with a single core design then.

There not built in the same way so what you call a core in a CPU doesnt really apply to a GPU. You could claim GPUs have 1, 100 odd or over 1000 depending on what you define as a GPU core.

 

[David Bisset]

If anything I'd characterise GPUs as massively multi-core, so they've gone way further down the multi-core route than CPUs, though each core is much less individually powerful.

They're so different that comparing them in this way may not be all that meaningful though.