Characteristics Which Affect Performance

Question 1

What is clock speed?

Answer 1

Number of cycles that the CPU can complete in 1 second (Hz)

Question 2

What is Cache?

Answer 2

Holding area for data from the RAM. It ensures the CPU is always busy with data.

Question 3

Number of cores?

Answer 3

Number of processing cores the CPU has. A dual-core has 2 and is able to process two instructions simultaneously in the same cycle.

Question 4

How does clock speed affect performance?

Answer 4

Faster clock speed means the CPU can process more instructions per second.
1 KHz = 1 mill
1 GHx = 1000 mill

Question 5

How does cache size affect performance?

Answer 5

Larger cache size means more data can be held and its less likely that any cycles are wasted. A smaller cache size and faster clock speed may result in a bottleneck between the RAM and CPU.

Question 6

How does the number of cores affect performance?

Answer 6

A duel- core processor or Quad- core processor is 2 to 4 times faster than a conventional chip as they can process simultaneously instructions.