1.1 Processors extra Flashcards
Where does control bus transmit control signals between
Control unit and other parts of the processor
Explain the need for the PC
stores address of next instruction, value sent to MAR and then PC increments to next value
Is there such thing as an interrupt register
Yes
What does all data to be saved use?
The accumulator
What does the CIR do with the address and data
Sends data to MDR and address to MAR where they act as a buffer
Role of control unit
Decodes instructions and sends signals to coordinate movement of data through the processor
How is address bus used
Transfers memory location to allow the data to be accessed
How does fast clock speed improve performance
Allows for more FDE cycles per second therefore more instructions can be executed per second therefore the program takes less time to run
How does large cache size improve performance
More space for data/instructions in cache therefore RAM accessed less and cache is quicker to access than RAM
How would updating an OS increase performance
OS release updates which improve performance
What affect would a lighter weight OS have on performance
Use fewer resources
Why would defragging disk improve performance
As data would be stored contiguously and would be quicker to access as physical head would be able to read the data in one location
Malware and spyware on performance
Decreases performance
More RAM on performance
Less need for slower virtual memory
Why would GPU speed up rendering?
As GPU has specialist instructions and can apply same instructions and can apply same instructions to multiple pieces of data at same time
Remember to talk about what on an LOR suggesting something
Cost
Describe one issue BRP causes for a CPU using pipelining
BRP could be followed by 2 instructions which will only be determined at execution so wrong one may be fetched/decoding
Explain another advantage other than cost of RISC compared with CISC
Programs run faster due to simpler instructions
Why is CISC more expensive?
Integrated circuit(expensive)
complex processor(expensive)
What is more available with CISC?
Many addressing modes and instructions are available
What is limited RISC?
Number of instructions
How are complex tasks completed with RISC
Multiple instructions are combined
Another example of RISC
Programs run faster due to simpler instructions
Explain the effect of using a co-processor for complex calculations for scientific research
Calculations done by maths co-processor so processing is faster when using floating point arithmetic
Explain the effect of using a co-processor for an advertising campaign
No increase in speed as no calculations
Three other features of von neuman
One control unit
One instruction at a time
Program and data stored together?
What is one of the main differences between RISC and CISC
RISC uses fixed number of bytes whereas CISC uses variable number of bytes
What happens in execute phase
Opcode carried out on operand
What is RAM apart of
Primary memory
Why is a GPU more suited for 3D rendering than a CPU
CPU’s are general purpose whereas GPU’s are designed for graphics so will have built in instructions for common graphics operations
How does multiple cores speed up processed
Speed up smaller problems but will not be enough for larger problems
When are GPU’s useful
On highly parallelisable problems but only where the same instruction is being applied to multiple pieces of data
What is it called when the same instruction is being applied to multiple pieces of data
SIMD
How can multiple computers work together
Distribute workload across computers