Differences Among APU, CPU, and GPU: A Closer Look
In the world of technology, efficiency and cost-effectiveness are key. That's where AMD's Accelerated Processing Units (APUs) come into play. Launched in 2011, these innovative chips combine the capabilities of a Central Processing Unit (CPU) and a Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) on a single chip, offering a balanced solution for everyday computing.
The CPU, the brain of a PC, is optimised for sequential, general-purpose computing and logic-based tasks. It has a small number of powerful, complex cores, making it best suited for running operating systems, general software, multitasking, and logic-heavy operations. However, it lags behind in parallel processing power compared to GPUs.
On the other hand, the GPU is designed for massively parallel, data-driven processing. It excels in graphics rendering and highly parallel workloads like AI, machine learning, deep learning, and video rendering. With thousands of simpler, energy-efficient cores, it offers higher memory bandwidth suitable for large data sets and faster parallel computation, making it ideal for compute-intensive tasks.
The APUs, by integrating both CPU and GPU on a single die, aim to offer moderate CPU and GPU capabilities together in a cost- and power-efficient manner. This integration allows them to work more efficiently for increased processing power. AMD's Ryzen AI 300 mobile chips, the latest APUs found in laptops, are a testament to this.
While APUs offer a significant improvement over traditional setups, they are not as powerful as dedicated CPU plus discrete GPU systems. Modern APUs can easily handle productivity and gaming, though modern discrete GPUs like the Radeon RX 9000 series still offer the best performance for high-end gaming or compute-heavy tasks.
The first APUs from AMD were called Llano and Brazos, followed by Trinity and Brazos-2 a year later. Since then, several generations of APUs have been released, with AMD's Ryzen 8000 G-series chips representing the most recent desktop hardware marketed directly as APUs.
Other tech giants are also jumping on the APU bandwagon. Qualcomm's Snapdragon X SoCs, for instance, can be considered APUs due to their integration of CPU, GPU, and Neural Processing Unit (NPU) on the same die. Many modern chips outside of AMD's come complete with a CPU, GPU, and an NPU for local AI tasks, often called Systems-on-Chip (SoC).
In the console market, AMD's APUs can be found inside the Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5 consoles. Intel's "Arrow Lake" Core Ultra Series 2 desktop chips, including the flagship Core Ultra 9 285K, also come with integrated graphics.
The Graphics Processing Unit is responsible for what is displayed on the monitor(s) connected to a PC. A GPU is designed to focus on big jobs that require a lot of power, such as intensive gaming, AI, and video editing.
In summary, CPUs handle diverse, sequential tasks with complex logic, while GPUs handle parallel-intensive tasks with many cores optimised for graphics and AI workloads. APUs combine CPU and GPU units on one chip for efficient, economical performance suitable for basic graphics and general computing but are not as powerful as dedicated CPU plus GPU systems.
