[Review] CUDA by Example — Best Book for GPU Beginners
· One min read
The book that helped me most when I first started learning CUDA programming.
Book Info
- Title: CUDA by Example: An Introduction to General-Purpose GPU Programming
- Authors: Jason Sanders, Edward Kandrot
- Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional (2010)
- Difficulty: ⭐⭐☆☆☆ (Beginner)
Why It's Good
Example-Driven Structure
Instead of burying you in theory, it shows working code first and explains afterward. The progression feels natural: kernel basics → memory management → textures/constant memory → streams.
Core Topics Covered
| Chapter | Topic |
|---|---|
| 3 | Writing & launching kernels |
| 4 | Parallel reduction |
| 5 | Thread cooperation & shared memory |
| 9 | Atomic operations |
| 10 | CUDA streams |
Downsides
- Published in 2010, so nothing on modern architectures (Volta / Ampere / Hopper).
- Warp-level primitives (
__shfl_sync, etc.) are not covered — you'll need NVIDIA's Programming Guide for those.
Who Should Read It
Anyone who knows C and wants to get started with CUDA — strongly recommended. Once you finish it, move on to the NVIDIA Programming Guide and GTC session slides for deeper optimization.
Score: 4 / 5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐☆