CPU Performance Flashcards
What affects System Performance
Clock Speed, Number of Cores, Cache Size
What is clock speed
Number of instructions a single processor core can carry out in a second -> GHz
What happens if you increase clock speed
Higher number of instructions able to carry out in a second
What is overclocked
Programmed around to run faster than factory setting speed
Risk of cpu being over locked
Overheating, cause crashes, permanently damage system
What does a core do
Processes data independently
More cores =
More instructions able to be carried out at once
Problems with cores
Needs software to be designed for multi core processing
What is Cache Size
Data storage in CPU which is faster than RAM
Larger CPU cache =
Faster access to more data
Too little RAM =
Computer runs slowly because it’s using virtual memory
More RAM =
More applications and more memory intensive applications it can run smoothly and quicker
Ram is too low then
Replace with higher capacity RAM sticks
Already has loads of RAM
Increasing will make no difference
What does GPU stand for
Graphics Processing Unit
What is a GPU
Specialised circuits for handling graphics and image processing
What does a GPU do?
Relieve processing load on CPU
To get Better Graphics you need to
Install a dedicated GPU (graphics card) - motherboard has a basic one intergrated but it isn’t good enough
Better graphics card =
Improved performance in graphic-intensive applications
