Understanding The CPU
April 4, 2008 PC Component Knowledge 4 Comments
The abbreviation CPU stands for Central Processing Unit. This is the basic memory or logic center of the computer and is considered to be the brains of a computer. All of this is contained within a single silicon chip and is characterized by the specific set of instructions, bandwidth, and clock speed that it has been configured with. The instructions detail exactly what the CPU is capable of executing. The Bandwidth determines how many bits are processed per instruction. And the clock speed determines the number of instruction executed per second measured in megahertz (MHz).
While you may have a fast CPU, you can’t always take full advantage of it’s capabilities. The speed at which your CPU will run at is determined by two factors, it’s internal multiplier and the motherboard and memories front-side bus (FSB). The FSB is the speed of data transfer between the CPU and the system memory. The internal multiplier indicates the speed of the processor and when multiplied by the FSB, yields the CPU speed in MHz. If your motherboard has a lower FSB than your processor can utilize, you will bottleneck your performance significantly. Many processors do not allow you to adjust the internal multiplier as even changing it by one is a significant jump in the MHz output of the CPU. Modifying the FSB for performance is by far the easiest and most common method of overclocking your CPU.
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