Clock frequency - How often it ticks to complete the fde cycle. During the fde cycle, instructions are processed such as: Wp, STA 7, add and etc. Clock speed is measured in Hertz (Hz). A typical CPU clock might be around 3 gigahertz or 3GHz.. This means that 3 billion instructions can be processed every single second! During each tick of the clock, only 1 instruction can be processed. 1 billion can be done every 3 GHz and every tick of the clock takes place e inside of the CPU. The quicker the processor, means more heat. The motherboard can be damaged if too much heat is made. To keep the temperature of the CPU down, a heat sink is then used.