Imagine three ways to make a restaurant serve more customers faster: 1) The chef works faster (clock speed - more cycles per second). 2) Hire more chefs working at the same time (cores - parallel processing). 3) Keep frequently-used ingredients right next to the cooking station (cache - faster data access). Modern CPUs use all three strategies to maximize performance!
This introduction covers The Restaurant Kitchen Revisited within CPU Performance for GCSE Computer Science. Revise CPU Performance in 3.4 Computer Systems for GCSE Computer Science with 15 exam-style questions and 12 flashcards. This topic appears regularly enough that it should still be part of a steady revision cycle. It is section 1 of 8 in this topic. Use this introduction to connect the idea to the wider topic before moving on to questions and flashcards.
Practice questions for CPU Performance
What does clock speed measure in a CPU?
Describe three factors that affect CPU performance.
Quick recall flashcards
Three CPU performance factors?
Clock speed, cores, cache
What is clock speed measured in?
GHz (gigahertz) - billions of cycles per second