Title: Know that the speed (operating frequency) of the CPU is measured in megahertz (MHz) or gigahertz (GHz).
Course: Module 1, Concepts of Information and Communication Technology (ICT)

Microprocessors

Microprocessors and clock speed

A microprocessor performs calculations on data and determines what to do with the results of those calculations. The main microprocessor inside a computer is called the Central Processing Unit (CPU).

- You can think of the CPU as the brains of the computer. All the other components are there to pass data to the CPU and then handle the results.

- The CPU has three main components: the control unit, which executes each step in the program; the logic control or arithmetic and logic unit (ALU), which performs all the calculations and logical operations; and the immediate access memory, which stores the data on which the computer is currently working.

- The CPU is not the only microprocessor in a computer. Components such as graphics cards and sound cards have their own processors to take some of the burden from the CPU on specific tasks.

Type and Speed

The performance or speed of a processor depends on the 'clock rate'.

The performance of the memory hierarchy also greatly affects processor performance.

Processing performance of computers is increased by using multi-core processors, which essentially is plugging two or more individual processors (called cores in this sense) into one integrated circuit.

In a perfect world a dual core processor would be roughly twice as powerful (and fast) as a single core processor. In reality the performance improvement is far less, usually around fifty percent.

CPU speed

CPU speed is measured in Megahertz. A 1MHz CPU can process one million CPU cycles in one second.

So this should mean that a 2MHz CPU is twice as fast as a 1Mhz CPU right?

Well, unfortunately it's not quite that simple, because it depends on how much work each CPU accomplishes in each clock cycle.

The 1MHz CPU might even be faster in some situations than the 2Mhz CPU - if it is more efficient or can process more tasks in each CPU cycle.

CPU speed is not the only indicator of CPU performance, although it is probably a reasonably indicator for most of us when buying a new PC.

Remember that factors inside and outside of the CPU have an impact on CPU performance, and on overall speed of your computer. These might include a slow hard disk, not enough RAM, a slow graphics card, etc.

These days even budget laptops will have a CPU around 2.0GHz speed.

Desktop computers might have CPUs around 2.5GHz to 3.0GHz.

Generally only a network server requires CPUs that are higher than 3.0GHz.

Microchip manufactures

Which of the following are microchip manufactures?

- Intel
Feedback: Correct!
- Athlon
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- CSI
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- FBI
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- Toyota
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