GPU

abbreviation or noun

ˌjē-(ˌ)pē-ˈyü 

variants or less commonly gpu

plural GPUs also gpus

: a specialized CPU designed to efficiently perform calculations for generating computer graphics

A GPU can deliver hundreds of billions of operations per second—some GPUs more than a teraflop, or a trillion operations per second—while requiring only slightly more electrical power and cooling than a CPU.

—Andrea Di Blas et al.

Examples of GPU in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Last in the power chain are rack power distribution units, which pass electricity along to the GPU-containing servers themselves. —Big Think, 22 Apr. 2026

Intel’s Panther Lake chips have meaningful performance advantages over AMD’s 2-year-old silicon in our testing, but if a specific workload or your own brand loyalty demands a Ryzen CPU and/or a Radeon GPU, those are among the off-the-shelf options available to you. —ArsTechnica, 21 Apr. 2026

There, rumors of a Razer Lake-AX chip line could feature a higher CPU core count, more cache, and a large integrated GPU, potentially offering a more midrange gaming experience without the need for a dedicated GPU. —Jon Martindale, PC Magazine, 14 Apr. 2026

Amkor specializes in taking several semiconductor components and packaging them into a single, large chip such as a graphics processing unit (GPU). —Liz Napolitano, CNBC, 11 Apr. 2026

Word History

Etymology

graphics processing unit

First Known Use

1973, in the meaning defined above