Characteristics of the CPU

includes small consolidation

how many common characteristics of the CPU are there?

3

What are the 3 common characteristics of the CPU?

• Clock Speed

• Cache Size

• Number of Cores

what do the three characteristics impact?

these characteristics has a significant impact on the performance of the CPU

what is clock speed measured in?

hertz (Hz)

what does the clock speed measure?

The clock speed measures the number of fetch-decode-execute cycles that can take place in 1 second

how does clock speed impact CPU performance?

The faster the clock speed, the more instructions can be fetched and executed per second

what is the clock speed of modern computers measured in?

Modern computers have a clock speed in Gigahertz (GHz), meaning billion

how many instructions can be performed per second if the clock speed in 3.5GHz

A clock speed of 3.5GHz can perform up to 3.5 billion instructions per second

what is cache?

Cache is very small, very fast memory on or close to the CPU

what is cache used for?

Cache is used as temporary storage to provide quick access to a copy of frequently used instructions and data

how does cache speed impact CPU performance?

• The larger the cache size, the more frequently used instructions or data can be stored

• This results in the CPU having to complete fewer fetch cycles from memory (RAM), speeding up the performance

why is using cache faster than using RAM?

Cache has a significantly faster read/write speed than RAM, making it much quicker to retrieve instructions from there instead of from memory (RAM)

how does a core work?

• A core works like it is its own CPU

what is meant by the term ‘multiple core processor’

Multiple core processors mean they have multiple separate processing units that can fetch, decode and execute instructions at the same time

what is an advantage to multi core processors?

Multi-core processors can run more powerful programs with greater ease

how does having multiple cores affect CPU performance?

Multiple cores increase the performance of the CPU by working with the clock speed

describe the features of a dual core processor?

• a dual-core processor would have 2 processing units, each with their own

  • Control Unit (CU)

  • Arithmetic Logic Unit (ALU)

  • Accumulator (ACC)

  • Registers

how many instructions could be run per second with a quad core CPU and a 3GHz clock speed?

• 4 cores x 3GHz

• 4 x 3 billion instructions

• 12 billion instructions per second

 State the purpose of the CPU (2)

• The CPU performs the FDE cycle

• Processes instructions

State what is meant by a dual-core 2.5Ghz processor (2)

• 
  Dual-core means there are two cores processing instructions

• 2.5GHs means it can run 2.5 billion FDE cycles per second

Von Neumann architecture contains registers. Identify two registers used in the Von Neumann architecture (2)

• Program Counter (PC)

• Memory Address Register (MAR)

• Memory Data Register (MDR)

• Accumulator (ACC)