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    GCSE OCR 1.1 The Common Characteristics of CPUs

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    Michael O’Leary
    This document discusses the common characteristics of CPUs that affect performance, including clock speed, cache size, and number of cores. It explains that clock speed is measured in Hertz and indicates the number of cycles per second a CPU can perform. Cache size refers to temporary storage near the CPU that improves access speed over main memory. The number of cores refers to separate processing units on a CPU, but doubling cores does not double speed due to communication overhead. It also briefly discusses multicore systems with multiple CPUs and specialized processing units.

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    GCSE OCR 1.1 The Common Characteristics of CPUs

    Uploaded by

    Michael O’Leary
    35 views16 pages
    This document discusses the common characteristics of CPUs that affect performance, including clock speed, cache size, and number of cores. It explains that clock speed is measured in Hertz and indicates the number of cycles per second a CPU can perform. Cache size refers to temporary storage near the CPU that improves access speed over main memory. The number of cores refers to separate processing units on a CPU, but doubling cores does not double speed due to communication overhead. It also briefly discusses multicore systems with multiple CPUs and specialized processing units.

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    4. GCSE OCR 1.1 The common characteristics of CPUs

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    This document discusses the common characteristics of CPUs that affect performance, including clock speed, cache size, and number of cores. It explains that clock speed is measured in Hertz and indicates the number of cycles per second a CPU can perform. Cache size refers to temporary storage near the CPU that improves access speed over main memory. The number of cores refers to separate processing units on a CPU, but doubling cores does not double speed due to communication overhead. It also briefly discusses multicore systems with multiple CPUs and specialized processing units.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pptx, pdf, or txt
    35 views16 pages

    GCSE OCR 1.1 The Common Characteristics of CPUs

    Uploaded by

    Michael O’Leary
    This document discusses the common characteristics of CPUs that affect performance, including clock speed, cache size, and number of cores. It explains that clock speed is measured in Hertz and indicates the number of cycles per second a CPU can perform. Cache size refers to temporary storage near the CPU that improves access speed over main memory. The number of cores refers to separate processing units on a CPU, but doubling cores does not double speed due to communication overhead. It also briefly discusses multicore systems with multiple CPUs and specialized processing units.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pptx, pdf, or txt
    of 16

    OCR GCSE

    SLR1.1 Systems architecture (J277)

    The common characteristics of


    CPUs

    Teacher site: craigndave.org | Student site: student.craigndave.org | Smart revise: smartrevise.co.uk


    SLR1.1 Systems architecture| The common characteristics of CPUs OCR GCSE (J277)

    Factors affecting speed


    SLR1.1 Systems architecture| The common characteristics of CPUs OCR GCSE (J277)

    Factors affecting speed

    Power of the engine


    SLR1.1 Systems architecture| The common characteristics of CPUs OCR GCSE (J277)

    Factors affecting speed

    Power of the engine


    Tyres
    SLR1.1 Systems architecture| The common characteristics of CPUs OCR GCSE (J277)

    Factors affecting speed

    Power of the engine


    Tyres
    Weather conditions
    SLR1.1 Systems architecture| The common characteristics of CPUs OCR GCSE (J277)

    Factors affecting speed

    Power of the engine


    Tyres
    Weather conditions
    Drivers skill
    SLR1.1 Systems architecture| The common characteristics of CPUs OCR GCSE (J277)

    Factors affecting speed

    Power of the engine


    Tyres
    Weather conditions
    Drivers skill
    Aerodynamics of the vehicle
    SLR1.1 Systems architecture| The common characteristics of CPUs OCR GCSE (J277)

    How common characteristics of CPUs affect their performance

    Clock speed
    • Measured in Hertz (Hz)
    • Number of cycles per second
    • Modern processors operate at
    billions of cycles per second,
    Gigahertz (GHz)
    • 3.2 GHz clock speed = 3.2 billion
    instructions can be fetched per
    second!
    SLR1.1 Systems architecture| The common characteristics of CPUs OCR GCSE (J277)

    How common characteristics of CPUs affect their performance

    Clock speed
    • Temporary storage of data and
    instructions being read to and
    Cache size written from.
    • Located on board or very near to
    the CPU.
    • Stores copies of recent data and
    instructions.
    • Much quicker getting items from
    the cache than from main memory
    (RAM).
    • Trying to avoid going and getting
    instructions and data from
    memory if we don’t need to as it
    costs time.
    SLR1.1 Systems architecture| The common characteristics of CPUs OCR GCSE (J277)

    How common characteristics of CPUs affect their performance

    Clock speed
    • A core is, in very simple terms, a
    complete copy of a CPU.
    Cache size • So a quad-core processor would have
    4 separate processing units, each with
    its own:
    Number of cores • Registers
    • ALU
    • Accumulator
    • Control unit etc.
    • CPUs with multiple cores have more
    power to run multiple programs at
    the same time.
    SLR1.1 Systems architecture| The common characteristics of CPUs OCR GCSE (J277)

    How common characteristics of CPUs affect their performance

    Clock speed
    • Note: doubling the number of
    cores doesn’t simply double the
    Cache size overall speed.
    • CPU cores have to communicate
    with each other, this takes time.
    Number of cores
    • Many programs are not designed
    to make use of multiple cores.
    SLR1.1 Systems architecture| The common characteristics of CPUs OCR GCSE (J277)

    • A CPU’s overall performance can be affected by many different factors.


    • The most important three are:
    • Clock speed:
    • Measured in Hertz (Hz).
    • Number of cycles per second.
    • 3.2 GHz clock speed = 3.2 billion instructions can be fetched per second (theoretically)!
    • Cache size:
    • Temporary storage of data and instructions being read to and written from the RAM.
    • Stores copies of recent data and instructions.
    • Much quicker getting items from the cache than from main memory (RAM).
    • Trying to avoid going and getting instructions and data from memory if we don’t need to as it costs time.
    • Number of cores:
    • A core is a complete copy of a CPU.
    • So a quad-core processor would have 4 separate processing units, each with its own:
    • Registers, ALU, Accumulator and Control Unit.
    • Doubling the number of cores doesn’t simply double the overall speed.
    • CPU cores have to communicate with each other, this takes time.
    • Many programs are not designed to make use of multiple cores.
    OCR GCSE
    SLR1.1 Systems architecture (J277)

    Going beyond the GCSE


    specification

    Teacher site: craigndave.org | Student site: student.craigndave.org | Smart revise: smartrevise.co.uk


    SLR1.1 Systems architecture| The common characteristics of CPUs OCR GCSE (J277)

    Multicore systems
    SLR1.1 Systems architecture| The common characteristics of CPUs OCR GCSE (J277)

    Multicore systems
    A “Chip Multiprocessor” (CMP):
    • Housing four CPU cores.
    Shared Cache
    • Commonly referred to as a quad-core processor.
    SLR1.1 Systems architecture| The common characteristics of CPUs OCR GCSE (J277)

    Multicore systems
    A “Chip Multiprocessor” (CMP):
    • Housing four CPU cores.
    Shared Cache
    • Commonly referred to as a quad-core processor.

    Additional specialised processing units:


    • Often found on other devices plugged into your computers
    motherboard, such as a graphics card or sound card.
    • Contain their own specialised processors which help
    offload tasks from the main CPU this making overall
    performance better.

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