TKC (The Killing Committee) Forum

To achieve the 20% boost, the researchers reduce the CPU to a fetch/decode unit, and the GPU becomes the primary computation unit. This works out well because CPUs are generally very strong at fetching data from memory, and GPUs are essentially just monstrous floating point units. In practice, this means the CPU is focused on working out what data the GPU needs (pre-fetching), the GPU’s pipes stay full, and a 20% performance boost arises.
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For what it’s worth, this kind of CPU/GPU integration is exactly what AMD is angling for with its Heterogeneous System Architecture (formerly known as Fusion System Architecture). AMD has a huge advantage over Intel when it comes to GPUs, but that means nothing if the software chain (compilers, libraries, developers) isn’t in place. The good news is that Intel doesn’t have anything even remotely close to AMD’s APU coming down the pipeline, which means AMD has a few years to see where this HSA path leads.