Crazy Idea

[Billy_Mays]

Would it be possible to use a GPU if you make a custom BIOS for it for it to be a cpu?

[jfunk7997]

It would take more than a custom BIOS. All software is written with a specific processor architecture in mind, in the case of of Intel and AMD CPUs it's x86 (32-bit) or x86_64 (64-bit). Because the architecture of GPUs isn't the same as CPUs, current software wouldn't work because it would be giving x86 instructions to a processor that doesn't know how to use it. Beyond that, at the most basic level, GPUs are just CPUs with many many cores that are good at rendering graphics but usually run at lower clock speeds to keep the heat at manageable levels. One could theoretically could do anything the other could, but it would lead to scenarios that would perform horribly because it's not designed for the job. That's on of the reasons why integrated GPUs on CPUs don't perform as well as dedicated ones. For optimal performance, you want the right tools for the right job.

Edit: TL;DR: Theoretically yes, practically no

[Billy_Mays]

3 minutes ago, jfunk7997 said:

It would take more than a custom BIOS. All software is written with a specific processor architecture in mind, in the case of of Intel and AMD CPUs it's x86 (32-bit) or x86_64 (64-bit). Because the architecture of GPUs isn't the same as CPUs, current software wouldn't work because it would be giving x86 instructions to a processor that doesn't know how to use it. Beyond that, at the most basic level, GPUs are just CPUs with many many cores that are good at rendering graphics but usually run at lower clock speeds to keep the heat at manageable levels. One could theoretically could do anything the other could, but it would lead to scenarios that would perform horribly because it's not designed for the job. That's on of the reasons why integrated GPUs on CPUs don't perform as well as dedicated ones. For optimal performance, you want the right tools for the right job.

Edit: TL;DR: Yes, but no.

Ok I was thinking it was really neat if you could do that's 

[yathis]

1 hour ago, Billy_Mays said:

Would it be possible to use a GPU if you make a custom BIOS for it for it to be a cpu?

Anything is possible with time and money available.

[Billy_Mays]

6 hours ago, yathis said:

Anything is possible with time and money available.

I got lots of time but not a lot of money

[Osga21]

2 hours ago, Billy_Mays said:

I got lots of time but not a lot of money

If you don't work at Intel/AMD and Nvidia then it doesn't matter. You'd need the design documents for that to work or spend a few years reverse engineering the GPU. Not to mention 99% of the programs available today are either made for x86 or ARM, which doesn't run on any GPU architecture, so you'd have to port every single program you want to use.

 

Next you'd need to either get a motherboard that supports a PCIe device as a CPU and I don't such a thing has been made in the last 20 years or you'd need to somehow convert a the GPU to a CPU socket which is nigh impossible.

 

After all that work you'd get an extremely slow processor because GPU's aren't made to handle CPU tasks and run at a lower clock speed, this is why we have processors made specifically for graphics work, otherwise we'd just use a second CPU. So yeah, this whole thing is hypothetically possible, but it would be a super wasteful use of anyone's time and it would be a task for a huge team of engineers.

[Billy_Mays]

38 minutes ago, Osga21 said:

If you don't work at Intel/AMD and Nvidia then it doesn't matter. You'd need the design documents for that to work or spend a few years reverse engineering the GPU. Not to mention 99% of the programs available today are either made for x86 or ARM, which doesn't run on any GPU architecture, so you'd have to port every single program you want to use.

 

Next you'd need to either get a motherboard that supports a PCIe device as a CPU and I don't such a thing has been made in the last 20 years or you'd need to somehow convert a the GPU to a CPU socket which is nigh impossible.

 

After all that work you'd get an extremely slow processor because GPU's aren't made to handle CPU tasks and run at a lower clock speed, this is why we have processors made specifically for graphics work, otherwise we'd just use a second CPU. So yeah, this whole thing is hypothetically possible, but it would be a super wasteful use of anyone's time and it would be a task for a huge team of engineers.

I dont live any where close to Nvidia or Intel or AMD offices

[urie090]

I have never thought of that before.

[Dash Lambda]

You might want to read up on Xeon Phi.

It's not exactly what you're talking about, but essentially it's what Intel came up with to compete with GPUs for compute applications. They stuck tons and tons of low-power x86 cores on a chip and dropped it on a PCIe expansion card. It looked like a GPU, it worked on the same principle as a GPU (many weaker cores), but it was actually a little x86 module that could even boot up on its own operating system and work on its own, if I recall.

At some point they showed off a server platform where they used a Phi chip as the CPU, rather than on an add-on card, but I think that failed even harder than the rest of the product line.

[Billy_Mays]

9 hours ago, Dash Lambda said:

You might want to read up on Xeon Phi.

It's not exactly what you're talking about, but essentially it's what Intel came up with to compete with GPUs for compute applications. They stuck tons and tons of low-power x86 cores on a chip and dropped it on a PCIe expansion card. It looked like a GPU, it worked on the same principle as a GPU (many weaker cores), but it was actually a little x86 module that could even boot up on its own operating system and work on its own, if I recall.

At some point they showed off a server platform where they used a Phi chip as the CPU, rather than on an add-on card, but I think that failed even harder than the rest of the product line.

Ok thanks for the info

[Billy_Mays]

56 minutes ago, Erik Sieghart said:

No, GPUs have different instruction sets; I doubt you could remap one to behave as an actual CPU, and if you could, it would be terribly slow.

It was just an idea no need to shoot it down 

[Guest]

That sounds like a process that would even make a team of employees at Intel have a headache when an Nvidia Titan Xp came in for them to make it a feasible main CPU .

 

Nonetheless, sounds pretty hard...

[Billy_Mays]

Just now, Erik Sieghart said:

You asked if it was possible. I don't think it's feasible at any rate.

GPUs are probably turing complete, so they're probably able to do everything a CPU would do, but much slower. They are built to work with their own (limited) RAM and not onboard RAM. You could impractically design a motherboard around this, but it wouldn't be easy and would take several years of R&D with a highly experience team.

Ok its that I get very curios some times