What is Graphics Processor Unit (GPU) Mining?

Graphics Processor Unit (GPU) mining is a cryptocurrency mining mechanism that makes use of GPUs instead of the Central Processing Units (CPUs) that had been used in the early days of the blockchain industry. For example, the Radeon HD 5970 GPU-miner is able to execute 3,200 32-bit instructions per clock. Compared to the 4 32-bit instructions per clock of a CPU, this represents an 800-fold increase in efficiency. Because of such drastically expanded processing capabilities, GPU mining is much more efficient for performing the types of repetitive computations needed for cryptocurrency mining.