A processing apparatus is described. The apparatus includes a graphics processing unit (GPU), including a thread dispatcher to assign a priority class to each of a plurality of processing threads prior to dispatching the one or more processing threads, a plurality of execution units to process the threads, a shared resource coupled to each of the plurality of execution units and an arbitration unit to grant access to the shared resource to a first of the plurality of execution units based on the priority class of a thread being executed at the first execution unit.