NVIDIA activates the GPU System Processor (GSP) on the Turing and Ampere GPUs. What is it about?

NVIDIA has currently unlocked a hidden function called GSP o GPU System Processor.

What is it about? As the name suggests, it is a solution dedicated to management of some operations (such as initialization and management) directly on board the GPU, thus relieving the CPU from this task and improving overall performance and efficiency. GSP should therefore be seen as a sort of coprocessor integrated into the GPUs.

Enabled in drivers 510.39, GSP still has limited functionality – by NVIDIA’s own admission – which will be expanded in future releases. Will GSP also be activated in the consumer sector? Probably yes, even if under a “false name” and initially only in the mobile environment. On the sidelines of the presentation of the new mobile GPUs RTX 3080 Ti and RTX 3070 Ti, the company presented some new technologies related to fourth generation of Max-Q including CPU Optimizer.

In the video above, NVIDIA talks about a “command processor” that takes care of low-level functions usually handled by the CPU. It could be GSP itself, but we don’t have confirmation of it, just as we still don’t have a clear picture of the real benefits of activating this component. We will probably know more in the near future.