CPU Performance Flashcards
What is cache memory?
Cache memory is a type of storage that can be accessed by the CPU extremely quickly.
Therefore the more cache memory in a computer system, generally the better the performance will be.
What is clock speed?
The speed at which a processor operates is called the clock speed. The faster the clock speed, the faster the computer is able to run the fetch-decode-execute cycle and therefore process more instructions.
What is a core?
A core is the term used to describe the processing components within the CPU. Multi-core processors therefore have many processing components within the same CPU.
Explain a single core cpu and a dual core cpu
In a single-core CPU each instruction is processed one after the other, whereas in a dual-core CPU, two instructions may be processed at the same time. In theory, a dual-core CPU should be able to process instructions twice as fast as a single-core CPU. However, this isn’t always the case, as sometimes Instruction 2 may need the result of Instruction 1 before it can be processed.
