The CPU can also be referred to as a Processor, Micro Processor or Central Processor. The CPU is the central processing unit of the computer, the CPU is the hardware which handles the instructions received from the hardware and software of the computer. People that are new to computers sometimes call the computer or monitor the CPU which is incorrect. The picture on the left shows an Intel i7 processor. The image on the left shows an Intel i7 processor, this is a good processor that is available to people right now. There are three main types of processor, these are:
Single Core - Single core is the oldest CPU’s that you can get for your computer. This type could only run one application at a time, if you were a person that frequently used more than one application you would be having a lot of problems if you were using a Single core CPU, if you were to use more than one application while running a single core processor you would see a significant change in the performance of your computer.
Dual Core - Basically the Dual core processor is 2 processors in one, this explains the “Dual” part. This meant that people no longer had to deal with running one application at a time, this new technology allowed people to run more than one application very well which made their computers much more efficient to use. There are a few downsides to the new dual core. The first downside was the price of the processor, because it was 2 in one the price became very expensive when it eventually went on the shelves. The other downside being the new special code that they used to run applications, most of the applications did not have this code which was the dual processor struggle to run the applications.
Quad Core - Much like when the Single core went to a Dual the Quad core is 4 CPU’s in one which was a dramatic change from the Dual core. The Quad core was great for multitasking as it had much more speed than the one before it. While the Quad core was very expensive it was beneficial if you were the type of person that used many applications when using your computer.
Speed - The CPU speed or processor speed is the amount of cycles that a CPU can perform per second. This is also known as Hertz, for example one cycle would be 1 Hertz, A megahertz means the CPU can perform one million cycles in a single second. A gigahertz would be able to perform one billion cycles per second. A 1GHz CPU might be faster that a 2GHz CPU depending on its architecture, it also depends on the amount of tasks that the CPU can do in each cycle.
Cache - The cache allows the CPU to access recently used information which has been stored in it. The cache of your CPU can change your computers performance dramatically. Some caches come in different sizes to others, for example a L1 Cache is 256Kb where as the L2 Cache is 1MB. You would think that the higher the size the better your computer will perform, but this is not always the case. The cache operates at a certain speed depending on the CPU that you have, some will be running at full speed while others may only use half the speed of the CPU and in some cases even less than half. A small cache that is running at full speed may be much more efficient than a larger cache only running at half the speed.
Address bus - An address bus is a computer bus architecture which is used to transfer data between devices that are identified by the hardware address of the memory, this is stored in binary numbers to enable the data bus to access memory storage. Each data bus is designed to handle many bits of data at the same time, the amount of data that the data bus can handle is called bandwidth. The normal data bus is 32-bits wide, this means that up to 32 bits of data can be transferred at the same time each second. The newer computers can handle up to 64-bit and some can even have 92-bit data paths. While these are used on a daily basis they're still working on making data buses that can handle much much more and also making devices that can handle these sizes.