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25 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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What is the CPU? |
The Central Processing Unit Controls the operations of a computer Fetched and executes instructions |
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How do processors work? |
Fetch-decode-execute Cycle |
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What are inside the processor? |
Registers |
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What are registers? |
Memory locations within the processor itself |
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What is the PC? |
Program Counter Keeps track of the memory location of the line of code being executed |
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What is the MDR? |
Memory data register Stores the data that has been fetched or stored in memory |
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What is the MAR? |
Stores the address of the data or instructions that are to be fetched from or sent to |
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What is the CIR? |
The current instruction register Stores the most recently fetched instruction, waiting to be decoded and executed |
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What is the ACC? |
The accumulator Stores the results of the calculations made by the ALU |
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What are general purpose registers used for? |
To temporarily store data being used at that current moment in time |
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What are buses? |
Communication channels through which data can be sent around the computer |
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What is the data bus used for? |
Carries data between the processor and memory |
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What is the address bus used for? |
Carries the address of the memory location being read from or written to |
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What is the control bus used for? |
Sends control signals from the control unit |
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What is the ALU? |
Arithmetic logic unit Carries out the calculations and logical decisions |
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What is the CU? |
Control Unit Sends out signals to coordinate how the processor works Controls how data moves between CPU and memory Instructions decided here |
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What does the CPU work to? |
Clock speed (GHz) |
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How can we improve CPU performance? |
Cache memory, faster clock, multiple cores, pipelining, GPUs |
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What is Cache Memory? |
Special type of fast memory used for data and instructions likely to be needed by processor |
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What is a core? |
Distinct processing unit in CPU |
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How does cache memory improve CPU performance? |
Built into the processor itself, reducing the distance data has to travel to it |
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How do multiple cores improve CPU performance? |
Multitasking different cores can run different applications at the same time- faster |
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What is pipelining? |
The practice of fetching one instruction while deciding another and executing one further |
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How does pipelining improve the CPU? |
Makes it faster |
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What are GPUs? |
Graphics Processing units Designed to deal with the mathematics involved with producing graphics on screen |
