CPU: Central Processing Unit
When a comp turns on it goes through all its parts. (microproccess)
- interprets and executes the instructions in each program
- Supervises arithmetic and logical data manipulations
- communicates with all the other parts of the comp. system indirectly through memory
- an extraordinarly complex collection of electronic circuits.
- Housed along w/ other chips and electronic components on the motherhood.
- All software is not necessary compatible w/ energy CPU
- Software written for the Power PC family of processors used in Macintosh comps won't run on intel processors
- Programs written for Linux can't run on PC's powered by Intel's microprocessor
- CPU's in the same family are generally designed to be backward compatible
- Newer proessor can process all of the instructions handled by earlier methods
- applications require faster machines to produce satisfactory results
- a comps overall performance is determined by:
- Its microprocessor internal clock speed
- measured in units called gigahertly (GHz) for billions of clock cycles per second
- The architecture and word size of the processor
- High-end workstations and servers use 64 bit processors
- Most PCs and Macintosh uses 32 bit processor
- Same embeddded and special-purpose comps still use 8 and 16 bit processors
- Techniques for speeding up a comp's performance:
- 11 processing
- Server cluster
No comments:
Post a Comment