Tensorflow, CNN: Do I have to make convolutional neural network with 'NCHW' format when using GPU?

Question

I reviewed DQN implementation code (https://github.com/devsisters/DQN-tensorflow) and found out this code generate CNN network with NCHW format when using GPU, NHWC otherwise.

I wonder whether this is mendatory... I mean, is it ok to generate CNN network with NHWC format even if I used GPU?

Answer 1

It might be ok if you don't care much about performance. In general, on GPU, NCHW is faster.

Why do you want specifically use NHWC on GPU ? You can convert between them, see Convert between NHWC and NCHW in TensorFlow