NCA CUDA Programming & Parallel Computing 4

Question 1

What is the role of a Streaming Multiprocessor (SM) in NVIDIA GPU architecture?

Accepted Answer

It is the basic compute unit that executes thread blocks and manages warps

Answer

An SM is the fundamental processing unit on a GPU, containing CUDA cores, schedulers, and registers that execute thread blocks.

Question 2

What is coalesced memory access in CUDA?

Accepted Answer

Threads in a warp accessing consecutive aligned memory locations in a single transaction

Answer

Coalesced access occurs when consecutive threads access consecutive memory addresses, allowing the memory controller to serve the entire warp in one or few transactions.

Question 3

Which CUDA feature allows kernels and memory transfers to overlap for better throughput?

Accepted Answer

CUDA streams

Answer

CUDA streams enable concurrent execution of kernels and asynchronous memory transfers, allowing overlap to hide latency.

Question 4

What does the __device__ function qualifier indicate?

Accepted Answer

The function runs on the device and can only be called from device code

Answer

__device__ functions execute on the GPU and are callable only from other device or global functions, not from host code.

Question 5

In the context of CUDA atomics, what problem do they solve?

Accepted Answer

Ensure race-condition-free read-modify-write operations on shared or global memory

Answer

Atomic operations guarantee that read-modify-write sequences complete without interference from other threads, preventing data races.

(NCA) NVIDIA-Certified Associate Practice Test

(NCA) NVIDIA-Certified Associate Practice Test

NCA CUDA Programming & Parallel Computing 4