Hardware Performance

Question 1

Modular design

Answer 1

when a computer is designed so that the components are not fixed -they can be switched out or replaced
Advantages:
-upgrading is simplified
-efficient, inexpensive repairing
-customization easy

Question 2

Performance of a computer: Overclocking

Answer 2

Making a computer / components run beyond their stock performance

• per component: change of each component’s own clock multiplication factor
• for whole system: increase spead of system bus (bad: run components over specifications

Question 3

CPU speed: register size

Answer 3

32 bit: has to process 64 bit numbers in 2 stages
64: only requires one stage
64 may run slower because of higher memory consumption: causing more cache misses

Question 4

CPU speed: hyperthreading

Answer 4

Two sets of registers
- data doesn’t have be switched in and out of registers
- CPU switches between instruction on the two registers
Context switching between 2 processes

Question 5

CPU Speed: Multiprocessing

Answer 5

Multiple CPUs / cores on a single chip

Multiple processes actually run at the same time

Question 6

Performance: Registers and Data bus

Answer 6

32 bit address bus can address 4GB RAM

64 bit address bus can address 17bill GB of RAM

Question 7

Performance: Primary memory: Cache and RAM

Answer 7

SRAM located closer to CPU
The more Cache - less time spent accessing info on RAM
More RAM - less need for virtual memory

Question 8

Performance: Access to and from Secondary storage

Answer 8

Speed of busses

Latency of drive

Question 9

Performance: SSD vs Mechanical

Answer 9

Mechanical: Limited by moving parts
 - seek time: time to move to correct track
 - latency: wait for the correct sector
SSD:
 - not mechanical

Question 10

Performance: Peripheral interfaces: Factors that influence efficiency

Answer 10

Data conversion
Protocol conversion
Voltage conversion

Question 11

Network speed: External network

Answer 11

Upload speed, downlaod speed offered by service providers

contention bases: divided

Question 12

Network speed: Internal network

Answer 12

switches: bottlenecking

If connected to high demand resources: limited bandwidth

Question 13

Factors that effect internal network efficiency (4)

Answer 13

• Amount of traffic
• Number of nodes
• Size of packets
• Diameter (distance between nodes)