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CPU Speed and Other Important Computer Performance Factors
The CPU is a large part of a computer’s microprocessor. The speed of a CPU, in large part, determines the speed of the microprocessor. Still, there are other factors which determine computer speed in general. In this article, I will touch on all the important elements that determine how fast your PC, or the PC you are thinking of buying, is.
The CPU speed itself is determined by elements outside the microprocessor, such as a crystal oscillator, and how large, electronically speaking, the microprocessor is. In other words, today’s microprocessors, though not much bigger than a postage stamp, contain the equivalent of about 600 million transistors. Such a microprocessor will potentially be faster than a microprocessor of just a few years ago, that contained the mere equivalent of 200 million transistors.
Core Speed and Clock Speed
The internal potential microprocessor speed factors are referred to as core speed and the outside factors that determine the speed your microprocessor actually operates at, is called its clock speed. A clock speed of 3.4GHZ, or 3.4 billion cycles per second, is considered excellent even in the most up to date computer.
Of course, few people are interested in the clock speed of a CPU as much as they are interested in how fast a computer actually is. The amount of RAM a computer is supplied with is probably the most popular way people normally equate to how fast a computer is. While RAM really isn’t as important as a lot of folks think it is, RAM is important.
I am writing this article on a laptop equipped with 4GB of RAM. Of course I am running the very resource unfriendly Windows Vista. If I were running Window XP, 1GB would probably be okay.
Show Me the Cache
Very important to how fast a CPU is and so, how fast a computer operates, is a little thing called L1 cache. That is cache, pronounced cash. The amounts of L1 cache seem very small. They run in the order of 64KB, or 64 thousand bytes, 32KB or even less. The most important thing about L1 cache is its presence. Not all microprocessors support it. Such microprocessors will never give top performance.
L1 cache stores regularly used information so it can be processed truly instantaneously instead of relying on the computer’s RAM which is much slower, to store everything. One of the reasons RAM is slow is because it is DRAM or dynamic RAM as opposed to the microprocessor’s L1 cache which is SRAM, or static RAM. Static RAM is way faster, though much more expensive than DRAM. Don’t confuse DRAM with SDRAM which is synchronous dynamic RAM.
Beside the amount of L1 cache present on a microprocessor another factor determining its speed is how well the CPU’s L1 cache is designed. One aspect of its design is whether it uses the extremely fast write back cache, or the not as fast write through cache. Unfortunately there is often no mention of such things in microprocessor stat spreadsheets. However, it is important to note that a lot of money can be saved on the price of a computer by cutting corners in the quality of the microprocessor.
So, when you see a line of computers’ stats that look about the same as a more expensive line of computers’ stats, but the cheaper line carry a different microprocessor than the more expensive one, you’ll know the less expensive line of computers cut corners somewhere. Usually, cheaper computers hold back on the microprocessors’ L1 cache in some way. So, if you buy one of these less expensive computers, you will sacrifice speed.
As for those of you who are using a computer that used to be fast, but has slowed down recently, make sure you are free of viruses and spyware. To do this, it may be necessary to use a separate virus and spyware cleaner. Then, after you know you are virus and spyware free, use a good registry cleaner. I’ve seen computer’s that had been slowing down for a long time start to operate with renewed vigor after taking these simple but important steps.