>What information is the CPU sending to the GPU that it can't just send to a display
It's a bit like this image. Very much simplified, you can think of the CPU sending information like this
There are 3 vertices (points) at the x, y, z coordinates (340, 239, 485), (312, 285, 512), (352, 297, 482) that form a triangle.
The vertices have these and those colors, textures, bump maps, reflective values, opacities etc.
The camera looks at them from position (112, 756, 912) with this and that angle, viewport, zoom.
There is a spotlight at (567, 88, 45) with this angle, shape, color, intensity. There is another one at (342, 1274, 1056).
And the GPU will come up with
What is the RGB color of pixel 1234, 342 on the display.
As others have answered, the CPU could do this, but the CPU is optimized for doing a bit of everything, and the GPU is optimized for doing a lot of floating point (decimal value) calculations in parallel.
Tazavoo t1_j6m05a6 wrote
Reply to ELI5: Why do computers need GPUs (integrated or external)? What information is the CPU sending to the GPU that it can't just send to a display? by WeirdGamerAidan
>What information is the CPU sending to the GPU that it can't just send to a display
It's a bit like this image. Very much simplified, you can think of the CPU sending information like this
And the GPU will come up with
As others have answered, the CPU could do this, but the CPU is optimized for doing a bit of everything, and the GPU is optimized for doing a lot of floating point (decimal value) calculations in parallel.