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Is it possible to use the NPU as "another" CPU? (lemmy.world)

submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Title. In other words, to make the system redirect workload to the NPU -first- and then to the CPU when it reaches 100% usage? Like both NPU and CPU were a single, huge CPU instead of being separated?

Thanks in advance.

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I'm not sure, but I'm wondering why you would want to do that. My memory on the details is vague, but iirc, NPU's perform worse when not doing LLM stuff. So you'd effectively bottleneck your system at the NPU before utilizing the correct tool, if my understanding is correct.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Well, then -- how about making the NPU process zram workloads (only)? I'd even ask "how about making it behave like a GPU instead of a NPU" but eh, I don't think it'd top or even have a similar performance than... any GPU available in the market?

why you would want to do that.

Because apparently everyone and their mother wants to stick a NPU on every PC, and I'm not planning on using AI ever, so... why not give it another purpose instead of letting it collect dust?

-EDIT- Oh, how about making the NPU behave like a CPU but it (only) process "low-process-demanding" applications like video editors, window managers, etc? If anything, freeing up a few extra %'s might be a good idea for a few PCs.