&gt;because the CPU would have to tell the GPU to clear memory and then wait for the GPU to finish before any other operations on the buffer could be done<p>If you&#x27;re doing write-only operations, the CPU can queue them behind the clear.  If you do a read, then the CPU has to wait whether you clear or not.<p>Latency doesn&#x27;t matter.  Clearing can be slotted in with other operations, such as first use.