1.1.2

Question 1

factors that affect CPU performance

Answer 1

-clock speed
-amount of cores
-cache size

Question 2

clock

Answer 2

-ticks at steady speed called ‘clock frequency’
-each time clock ticks one complete fetch-decode-execute cycle takes place
-3GHz means 3 billion instructions can be processed every second
-the higher the clock frequency the faster the CPU can run

Question 3

overclocking

Answer 3

clock speed can be increased over it’s normal design limit which allows the CPU to process more instructions (need a very good system to stop overheating)

Question 4

core

Answer 4

-has it’s own ALU, control unit and registers

Question 5

multitasking

Answer 5

having additional cores allows multiples tasks to be carried out simultaneously

Question 6

parallel processing

Answer 6

when a single task is split into parts and processed at the same time

Question 7

cache

Answer 7

-small but extremely fast memory
-stores instructions and data that are frequently used
-they don’t have to be fetched directly from RAM, thus speeding up performance
-cache is expensive