1.1.2 Glossary (CPU Performance)

Question 1

Clock Speed

Answer 1

How many instruction cycles the CPU can deal with in a second. Measured in MHz or GHz. Faster is better.

Question 2

Cache Size

Answer 2

The larger the amount of cache the CPU has the more instructions it can store without having to transfer to main memory and therefore the faster it will perform.

Question 3

Cores

Answer 3

Some CPUs have more than one core, each containing its own ALU and registers and therefore capable of carrying out instructions independently. The more cores, the more instructions the CPU can process at once and therefore the faster it performs.