GCSE Computing 1.1 CPU Performance

2,000,000 instructions per second

2,000,000,000 instructions per second

20,000,000 instructions per second

200,000 instructions per second

10 Mhz

1 Mhz

1 Ghz

100 Mhz

Level 3 cache is closest to the CPU

Cache is part of main memory

Level 1 cache is closest to the CPU

Cache memory is cheaper than "normal" memory

There are 4 Cores and 6 Channels in this CPU

There are 6 Cores and 4 Channels in this CPU

You could double the number of cores to double the CPU speed

This CPU has 4 Ghz clock speed

Level 1 cache

Level 2 cache

CPU

Main Memory

Level 1 cache

Level 2 cache

CPU

Main Memory

Clock Speed

Cache Size

Number of cores

SSD (Solid State Drive)

The time taken to Fetch an instruction

The time taken to Execute an instruction

The time take to execute a whole program

The time taken to perform the Fetch Execute Cycle

A dual-core CPU can run through the Fetch Execute Cycle, four times per second

Overclocking is a safe way of improving CPU performance

A quad-core CPU can carry out more Fetch Execute Cycles per second than a dual core CPU

Overclocking can improve CPU performance

Main Memory

L1 Cache

L2 Cache

EXTERNAL memory (i.e. on a USB stick)