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3 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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The CPU is often described as the brains of the computer. It is where all the searching, sorting, calculating and decision making takes place in the computer.
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The 'FETCH Decode Execute' cycle.
The CPU gets data and instructions from the RAM which comes from the hard drive, but this information cannot go directly form the hard drive to the CPU. The CPU the decodes the instructions and data to make sense of them. It then processes the instructions and data using 'execute'. |
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The name of the 'Internal Memory Areas' are called 'registers'.The 'Vital Hardware Path' is called the address bus. The name for the other bus that the data and instructions moves onto is called the data bus.
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The three main jobs of the CPU are for it to control and monitor the hardware attached to the system to make sure that the commands given to it by the application software are used. For example, if you send something to print, the control unit will keep a check that the instructions are sent to the printer correctly.
It controls the input and output of data so that the signals go to the right place at the right time. It controls the flow of data within the CPU - which is the Fetch-Execute cycle described above. |
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Arithmetic Logic Unit (ALU)
Arithmetic part - which does exactly what you think it should - it performs the calculations on the data e.g. 3 + 2 = 5 Logic part - this deals with logic and comparisons. For example, it works out if one value is greater, less than or equal to another. |
Clockspeed
A computer can only process one instruction at a time. A computer can only process one instruction at a time. A computer with a 3Ghz processor could carry out 3 thousand million instructions per second. The downside of better speed and performance is that it runs hotter and consumes more power. Overclocking means that they adjust the clock to run faster than the CPU was originally designed to for. This makes it run hotter also, and so, extra cooling fans have to be purchased and fitted. |
