CPU Performance (AQA GCSE Computer Science): Flashcards
📚Flashcards
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13 cards from this deck
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Practise the cards
13 cards from this deck
What are the three main factors affecting CPU performance?
What are the three main factors affecting CPU performance?
Clock speed, cache memory size, number of processor cores
What does clock speed do in a CPU?
What does clock speed do in a CPU?
Acts like a metronome, each tick is one step in processing
Unit used to measure clock speed
Unit used to measure clock speed
Gigahertz (GHz)
What GHz means
What GHz means
Billions of cycles per second
What is cache memory?
What is cache memory?
Small, super-fast storage area right next to the CPU
Cache hit
Cache hit
When data the CPU needs is found in the cache
Cache miss
Cache miss
When data not in cache, must fetch from slower main memory
Why more cache improves performance
Why more cache improves performance
CPU spends less time waiting for data from slow main memory
What are processor cores?
What are processor cores?
Multiple CPUs working together in one chip
What is parallel processing?
What is parallel processing?
Multiple cores handling several tasks simultaneously
Three steps of Fetch-Execute cycle
Three steps of Fetch-Execute cycle
Fetch, Decode, Execute
Fetch step in Fetch-Execute cycle
Fetch step in Fetch-Execute cycle
Instructions are retrieved from memory
How CPU performance factors interact
How CPU performance factors interact
All factors work together to determine overall performance