I will stray away from the technical aspects as I intend to make this as basic as possible.
A computer is a lot like an earth person. The two most important components of the human being are the Heart and the brain. The computer also possesses just like humans its own heart and brain and that is what we'll be learning about today.
Welcome to computational biology 101...(coined that up right now)
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What is the CPU?
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We all know the CPU, the central processing unit to be the brain of the computer as we were told in grade five, and that is essentially what a CPU is. A CPU is capable of handling all of the affairs of the computer ranging from writing documents, listening to music, watching videos, and being a nuisance on our favorite social media.
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What is the GPU?
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GPU stands for Graphics Processing Unit... I like to refer to GPU as the heart of the computer. Just like in human beings where the activities performed by the heart are completely independent of the brain, the same goes for the GPU.
The primary activity performed by the heart is the pumping of blood to the brain and the rest of the body, which we all know is a vital activity for the sustenance of an earth person. Just like the heart, the primary purpose of the GPU is to support the CPU in certain areas which will be discussed later on.
Why have a CPU and a GPU?
As mentioned earlier I will try to stray away from the technical aspects as I intend to make this as basic as possible. I would like to start with the activities carried out by the CPU. The CPU controls everything in a computer, some of these common tasks carried out by the CPU includes copying a file from the flash drive to the computer, watching an episode of family guy on your video player, trying to calculate the sum of 67822 and 9370, listening to your favorite artist album, typing a document, joining a meeting online, ... the list goes on. Moving on to why you may need a GPU. to go straight to the point, one does not really need a GPU if you don't play any game from 5years ago, you don't do any video editing, 3d modeling, artificial intelligence, etc. If you happen to be like me, a gamer and a dev. I would advise you to go for a pc with a CPU and a GPU. To sum it all up, the GPU does the real heavy lifting for the pc and the CPU handles all other affairs that do not require too much graphic processing.
Why not use a standalone GPU?
The reason why no pc should operate only on a GPU is that the GPU as mighty as it may sound can not really handle a lot of activity from different system applications all at the same time as the CPU.
The major manufacturer of CPUs is Intel and for GPU we have Nvidia and AMD...example of a CPU is the intel 5500 and a GPU is the NVIDIA 3060TI.
I would leave you with a piece of advice; never buy a PC with a low-grade AMD GPU instead go for a Nvidia 800-series if funding might be an issue.
Legend:
- AMD = Advanced Micro Devices, Inc
- GPU = Graphic Processing Unit
- Intel: just Intel :)
- NVIDIA = just NVIDIA :)
I didn't cover a lot, please use the links above.