Please enable JavaScript.
Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.
1.2 Factors Affecting The Processor (Number of Cores (Many computers…
1.2
Factors Affecting The Processor
System Clock
A series of regular ON/OFF signals are used to synchronise the operations of the processor components
Actions are usually carried out on the rising edge of the clock
Actions each take a fixed number of cycles to complete
Factors Affecting Performance
The Fetch-Execute cycle is triggered by the clock pulses of the system clock
The faster the clock speed, the faster a computer can fetch, decode and execute instructions
This clock can change state many billions of times per second
A 4GHz processor would tick 4 billion times per second
Factors which affect CPU performance
Clock speed
The number of cores in the processor
The amount and type of cache memory
Number of Cores
Many computers today, including personal computers, have multiple cores
A dual-core computer has two processors linked together in the same integrated circuit
A quad-core computer has four linked processors
Each core is theoretically able to process a different instruction at the same time with its own fetch-execute cycle, making a quad-core computer two or even four times faster than a single-core computer
However, the software may not always be able to take full advantage of all four processors
Cache Memory
Cache is a small amount of superfast (but expensive) memory that stores data and instructions that have recently been used by the processor
Level 2 cache is larger but not as fast as Level 1 cache
Both types are held on the processor chip
