# GPU

A graphics processing unit. Hardware with many parallel cores, well suited to large array and matrix operations.

Source: https://university.eugo.io/glossary/gpu

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Well suited to large array arithmetic and poorly suited to small or branch-heavy work. Moving data to the GPU costs time, so a small operation can measure slower there than on the CPU. Verify a speedup rather than assuming one.

## Related terms

- [GPU offloading](https://university.eugo.io/glossary/gpu-offloading) — Moving computationally intensive operations onto a GPU. Eugo applies this automatically when a GPU is available and the data transfer is worth its cost.
- [Compute node](https://university.eugo.io/glossary/compute-node) — A machine in a cluster that executes tasks. Compute nodes do the work; the head node coordinates it.
- [options()](https://university.eugo.io/glossary/options) — The method that sets per-call resource requirements on a distributed function, such as num_cpus or num_gpus.