[cgreerrun]

This video is a great explainer too:

How do Graphics Cards Work? Exploring GPU Architecture (https://youtu.be/h9Z4oGN89MU?si=EPPO0kny-gN0zLeC)

[ferbivore]

These videos always give me an unpleasant feeling that I don't know how to express in a useful way. Almost everything in this one is oversimplified, misleading, or wrong, yet I feel like any attempt to argue for this would come off as pedantic; any individual complaint could be countered by either "it's technically true" or "it's just entertainment".

Like, the "cowboy hat" example is wrong on multiple levels - GPUs are not SIMD machines, model-to-world translation doesn't work like that in practice - but you can maybe excuse it as a useful educational lie, and he does kind-of explain SIMT later, so is objecting to it valid? Or: the video claims to be about "GPUs", but is in fact exclusively about Nvidia's architecture and the GA102 in particular; is this a valid complaint, or is the lie excusable because it's just a YouTube video? Or: it overemphasizes the memory chips because of who's sponsoring it; does this compromise the message? Or: it plays fast-and-loose with die shots and floorplans; is a viewer expected to understand that it's impossible to tell where the FMA units really are? Or: it spends a lot of time on relatively unimportant topics while neglecting things like instruction dispatch, registers, dedicated graphics hardware, etc.; but is it really fair to complain, considering the target audience doesn't seem to be programmers? And so on.

Did you actually get anything out of this video? Any new knowledge? The article seems like a much more useful intro, even if it is also specific to Nvidia and CUDA.

[cgreerrun]

The only time I really feel like I understand something is by building something with it. So actually writing a CUDA kernel to do grayscale conversion and then tweaking the code.

BUT... both the video and the article are useful before you do that. They both allow you to build a mental model of how GPUs work that you can test later on.

[cruffle_duffle]

Honestly, I think Branch Education does a solid job with topics like this. Yes, it glosses over details and sometimes simplifies to the point of oversights, but that’s often necessary in educational content to avoid getting bogged down. It’s a balance: if you dive too deep, you risk losing the main points.

Branch Education is designed to introduce complex concepts, often for high schoolers or newcomers to the subject. Even my first grader finds it interesting because it’s visually engaging and conveys a general understanding, even if much of the terminology goes over their head. Their video on how computer chips are made, for example, managed to hold the whole family’s attention. That is hard to do for most of the nerdy shit I watch on YouTube!

It’s not meant to be a deep dive—Ben Eater is better suited for that. His work on instruction counters, registers, and the intricacies of “how CPUs work” is incredible, but it’s for a different audience. You need a fair amount of computer science and electrical engineering knowledge to get the most out of his content. Good luck getting my family to watch him breadboard an entire graphics system; it’s fascinating but requires a serious commitment to appreciate fully.

[penr0se]

Wow, this is one of the best videos I've ever watched. Thanks for sharing

[Hunpeter]

I've been binging Branch Education the last week or so, and I concur that the videos are exceptionally well made. Some commenters noticed one or two mistakes in some of them, but nothing major.

[cgreerrun]

You're welcome! I highly recommend the CPU/microchip one too.