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That's orthogonal. Fixed-function hardware has a power efficiency advantage over programmable hardware. This isn't new or surprising, but it's also unrelated to
by kllrnohj 2y ago
That's orthogonal. Fixed-function hardware has a power efficiency advantage over programmable hardware. This isn't new or surprising, but it's also unrelated to CPU vs. GPU. Both CPU & GPU are programmable, so that's not relevant.
- astrange 2y agoThose aren't useful distinctions. You might as well say the ALUs in a CPU aren't programmable because they aren't the instruction decoders.
- kllrnohj 2y agoHuh? Weren't you referring to things like the video decoding blocks? Those are genuinely fixed-function things, they have no aspects of programmability to them. It's why their capabilities are fixed for all time (eg, AV1 support requires a hardware change). It's like a pre-shader GPU. It's a very useful distinction to make.