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In 2016, NVIDIA announced that the company is working on replacing its Fast Logic Controller processor codenamed Falcon with a new GPU System Processor (GSP) solution based on RISC-V Instruction Set Architecture (ISA). This novel RISC-V processor is codenamed NV-RISCV and has been used as GPU's controller core, coordinating everything in the massive pool of GPU cores. Today, NVIDIA has decided to open this NV-RISCV CPU to a broader spectrum of applications starting with 510.39 drivers. According to the NVIDIA documents, this is only available in the select GPUs for now, mainly data-centric Tesla accelerators.
As this document shows, many tasks like GPU management and initialization were performed by the driver on the CPU. The CPU is traditionally external (relative to the GPU), resulting in higher latencies when requests are made. A CPU embedded into the GPU results in instant delivery of requested data/action, enabling lower latencies and improving performance. We have yet to see what NVIDIA can do with it and how significant the performance penalty was using old ways when the GSP was not enabled. This also points a new direction for GPUs and accelerators alike, an independent state where CPUs get integrated on-die instead of depending on external hardware.
So far, only select GPUs get their GSP unlocked, and the complete list can be found in the document and the image above. It is advised to check the webise for the record, as NVIDIA can update it at any time.
View at TechPowerUp Main Site
NVIDIA Documents said:
As this document shows, many tasks like GPU management and initialization were performed by the driver on the CPU. The CPU is traditionally external (relative to the GPU), resulting in higher latencies when requests are made. A CPU embedded into the GPU results in instant delivery of requested data/action, enabling lower latencies and improving performance. We have yet to see what NVIDIA can do with it and how significant the performance penalty was using old ways when the GSP was not enabled. This also points a new direction for GPUs and accelerators alike, an independent state where CPUs get integrated on-die instead of depending on external hardware.
So far, only select GPUs get their GSP unlocked, and the complete list can be found in the document and the image above. It is advised to check the webise for the record, as NVIDIA can update it at any time.
View at TechPowerUp Main Site
) triggered by the extreme speed of that processor and it may be present in older architectures alongside the original FALCON microcontroller
