What does the expression processor clock speed equal mean? What is the processor clock speed and what should it be? Processor graphics core, heat dissipation and technologies

Statement:

The higher the processor clock speed, the higher its performance.

The speed of processors has always been compared based on their leading and most understandable characteristic - clock frequency. The fashion for this was introduced in 1984 by IBM PC marketers, who argued that Intel processor The 8088 in their computer is almost five times faster than the MOS Technology 6502 in clock speed
from the Apple II - which means it's almost five times faster. Intel and Microsoft followed the same logic in the 90s, claiming that Pentium was more productive than PowerPC from Apple computers only because it has a higher clock speed. After AMD joined the race in the late 90s, the company had to introduce special markings that compared their processors with Intel processors. Most consumers were confident that clock speed was the main characteristic, and Intel, which relied on its growth, only supported them in this belief.

JOHN SPOONER

journalist

“After the release of Pentium III processors operating at frequencies up to 667 MHz, AMD may lose its leadership. Submitted
Athlon processors are running this month
with a maximum frequency of 650 MHz. But Intel's leadership won't last long. According to AMD representatives, they will release a processor with a frequency of 700 MHz by the end of the year.”

Why this is not true:

The time it takes to complete operations is more important than the clock speed.

It is correct to compare the clock frequency only
processors of the same model series with the same architecture. Although the frequency of the Intel 8088 was almost five times higher than that of the MOS Technology 6502, in fact, the same operation could take more clock cycles from the Intel 8088, which is why the advantage in frequency was leveled out. So it was
in the future: first Apple, and then AMD tried to expose the “myth of megahertz.” In 2006, Intel finally joined them, reaching the clock speed limit on the architecture it was then using in desktop processors, and changing the paradigm.

Today the number of operations that the processor performs
in one clock cycle, clock speed has never been more important. Case
is that the higher the frequency, the higher the heat generation,
and therefore the creators of mobile processors focus
for optimization, not dry numbers. The myth, however, goes nowhere
did not disappear, and even evolved: for example, many began to believe that the speed of a processor is proportional to the number of cores in it. Yes, and if you name the average person two processors with different clock frequencies, then he will still
by inertia it will choose the one with more megahertz.

As you know, the processor clock speed is the number of operations performed per unit of time, in this case, per second.

But this definition is not enough to fully understand what this concept actually means and what significance it has for us, ordinary users.

You can find many articles on this subject on the Internet, but all of them are missing something.

More often than not, this “something” is the very key that can open the door to understanding. Therefore, we tried to collect all the basic information, as if it were a puzzle, and put it together into a single, holistic picture.

Detailed definition

So, clock speed is the number of operations a processor can perform per second. This value is measured in Hertz.

This unit of measurement is named after a famous scientist who conducted experiments aimed at studying periodic, that is, repeating processes.

What does Hertz have to do with operations in a second?

This question arises when reading most articles on the Internet from people who did not study physics very well at school (maybe through no fault of their own). The fact is that this unit precisely denotes the frequency, that is, the number of repetitions of these same periodic processes per second.

It allows you to measure not only the number of operations, but also various other indicators. For example, if you make 3 entries per second, then your breathing rate is 3 Hertz.

As for processors, a variety of operations can be performed here, which boil down to calculating certain parameters. Actually, the number of calculations of these same parameters per second is called the clock frequency.

How simple it is!

In practice, the concept “Hertz” is used extremely rarely; more often we hear about megaHertz, kiloHertz, and so on. Table 1 shows the “decoding” of these values.

Table 1. Designations

The first and last are currently used extremely rarely.

That is, if you hear that it has 4 GHz, then it can perform 4 billion operations every second.

Not at all! This is the average today. Surely, very soon we will hear about models with a frequency of terahertz or even more.

How is it formed

So, it contains the following devices:

• clock resonator - is an ordinary quartz crystal, enclosed in a special protective container;
• clock generator– a device that converts one type of vibration into another;
• metal cover;
• data bus;
• textolite substrate to which all other devices are attached.

So, a quartz crystal, that is, a clock resonator, forms oscillations due to the supply of voltage. As a result, oscillations of electric current are formed.

A clock generator is attached to the substrate, which converts electrical oscillations into pulses. They are transmitted to data buses, and thus the result of the calculations reaches the user.

This is exactly how the clock frequency is obtained. It's interesting that regarding this concept There are a huge number of misconceptions, in particular regarding the connection between nuclei and frequency. Therefore, this is also worth talking about.

How frequency relates to cores

The core is, in fact, the processor. The core refers to the very crystal that forces the entire device to perform certain operations. That is, if a particular model has two cores, this means that it contains two crystals that are connected to each other using a special bus.

According to a common misconception, the more cores, the higher the frequency. It’s not for nothing that developers are now trying to fit more and more cores into them. But that's not true. If it is 1 GHz, even if it has 10 cores, it will still remain 1 GHz and will not become 10 GHz.

The main criterion when choosing a processor for a new computer is its performance. The bigger The processor is fast, the faster you work with various programs, utilities and the operating system. The speed of the processor depends, as already mentioned, on clock frequency, measured in megahertz (MHz) and gigahertz (GHz). Moreover, it depends on the volume cache memory first and subsequent levels, data bus frequency (FSB) And processor capacity.

Megahertz is a million vibrations per second, while a gigahertz represents a billion vibrations per second. It is generally accepted that the higher the clock speed a processor operates, the better its performance. However, this is not always true. Moreover, the overall system performance is highly dependent not only on the processor, but also on all other components. Let's say you purchased a 3 GHz Core i3 processor, but installed only 2048 MB, and also used it at a low data transfer rate. With this configuration, the differences in performance between a 2 and 3 GHz processor will be barely noticeable. In other words, the performance of a computer depends on the performance of the slowest component, be it the processor, RAM, hard drive or even a power supply (because if the power supply is not enough to power the hardware components, you can completely forget about the stable operation of the computer).

Processor clock speed and its catch

Let's take a closer look at the question why processor clock speed does not guarantee its high performance. The clock frequency, as its name implies, consists of beats, or clock periods. Each operation performed by the processor takes one clock cycle and several wait cycles. The wait cycle is an “empty” cycle, i.e. a clock period during which no operations are performed. Wait cycles are necessary to ensure synchronous operation of different computer components. Different commands take different numbers of clock cycles to execute. For example, processor Core i3 can execute at least 12 commands per clock cycle. The fewer clock cycles required to execute a command, the higher the processor. In addition, other factors also affect performance, for example, the size of the first/second level cache.

Processors Core I and Athlon II They have different internal architectures, so commands are executed differently in them. As a result, it is impossible to compare these processors based on clock speed. For example, a processor Athlon II X4 641 With a clock speed of 2.8 GHz, it has performance roughly comparable to a Core I3 processor running at 3 GHz.

Parameter name	Meaning
Article topic:	Clock frequency.
Rubric (thematic category)	Computers

Memory that can be addressed by the CPU.

Degree of chip integration (chip) shows how many transistors can fit in it. For an Intel Pentium (80586) processor, this is approximately 3 million transistors per 3.5 cm 2.

Processor size shows how many bits of data it can receive and process in its registers at a time (in one clock cycle). Modern Intel Pentium family processors are 32-bit

Operating clock frequency determines the speed at which operations are carried out in the processor. Today, processor operating frequencies reach more than 1 billion cycles per second (1 GHz).

The CPU is in direct contact with the PC's RAM. The data processed by the CPU must be temporarily located in RAM and is again retrieved from memory for further processing. For the CPU86/88, this addressing area extends to a maximum of 1 MB; the 80486 processor can already provide access to 4 GB of memory.

Real Address Mode - real addressing mode (or simply real mode - Real Mode), fully compatible with 8086. In this mode, addressing up to 1 MB is possible physical memory(in fact, like the 80286, almost 64 KB more).

Protected Virtual Address Mode - protected virtual addressing mode (or simply protected mode - Protected Mode). In this mode, the processor allows you to address up to 4 GB of physical memory, through which, using the page addressing mechanism, up to 64 TB of virtual memory of each task can be mapped.

A significant addition is Virtual 8086 Mode - 8086 virtual processor mode. This mode is a special state of a protected mode task in which the processor functions as an 8086. In this mode, several tasks with resources isolated from each other can be executed in parallel on one processor.

An important difference between the elements RAM from other storage devices is the access time, characterized by the time interval during which information is written to or retrieved from memory. Access time for an external storage medium such as a hard drive is expressed in milliseconds, but for a memory element it is measured in nanoseconds.

Disk drives (Floppy Disk Drive, FDD) are the oldest peripheral devices PC. They use floppy disks as a storage medium. (Floppy) 3.5" diameters and 5.25" dimensions.

To write and read information, it is extremely important to split the floppy disk into certain sections - to create a logical structure. This is done by formatting using a special command, for example, for DOS - the command Format. The floppy disk is divided into tracks ( Tracks) and sectors (Sectors), in Fig. this partition is shown.

The main criterion for evaluation hard drive is its capacity, that is, the maximum amount of data that must be written to the medium

When accessing large arrays of data, the magnetic heads must be positioned on the disk much more often than when accessing small arrays and data that are sequentially located on the disk. So the read and write speed is determined by the average access time (A verage Seek Time) to various objects on the disk. For best IDEs and SCSI HDD this time is less than 10 ms.

Data transfer speed is proposed as the second parameter to evaluate the performance of a hard drive. It is important to note that for modern models it is 10 MB/s.

A monitor is a device for visually displaying information. The signals that the monitor receives (numbers, symbols, graphic information and synchronization signals) are generated by the video card. However, the monitor and video card are a kind of tandem, which for optimal performance must be configured accordingly.

Video card.

For most applications, VGA resolution is sufficient. At the same time, graphics-oriented programs work much better and faster (there are cases when they are not even installed if the installed resolution or video card does not correspond to their capabilities), if the information density of the screen is higher. For this, it is extremely important to increase the resolution. Τᴀᴋᴎᴍ ᴏϬᴩᴀᴈᴏᴍ, standard VGA developed into the so-called Super VGA (SVGA) standard. The standard resolution in this mode is 800x600 pixels.

Let's note a regularity: with a video memory capacity of 256 KB and SVGA resolution, only 16 colors can be provided; 512 KB of video memory makes it possible to display 256 color shades at the same resolution. Cards with 1 MB of memory, and this has now become commonplace, can display 32768, 65536 (HiColor) or even 16.7 million (TrueColor) color shades at the same resolution.

According to modern medical and psychological assessments, the human eye does not perceive screen flickering associated with image updating only at a vertical scanning frequency of at least 70 Hz. With increased resolution, the image on the monitor screen begins to flicker, which greatly increases fatigue and negatively affects vision.

Main consumer parameters monitors are screen size, screen mask pitch, maximum image refresh rate and protection class.

The most convenient and versatile monitors are those with screen sizes of 15 and 17 inches. To work with graphics, monitors with large screen sizes (19-21 inches) are used.

The pitch of the screen mask determines the clarity of the image (resolution). Today, a pitch of 0.25-0.27 mm is used. All monitors with a grain greater than 0.28mm fall into the "cheap" and "rough" category. The best monitors have a grain of 0.26 mm, and the highest quality monitor we know of (and, naturally, the most expensive) has this value of 0.21 mm.

The image refresh rate also determines the clarity and stability of the image and must be at least 75 Hz.

The protection class determines whether the monitor meets safety requirements. Fulfillment of the most stringent requirements for operational safety is ensured by the TSO-99 standard.

Image properties depend not only on the monitor, but also on the err properties and settings of the board located in system unit(video adapter). The monitor and video adapter must match each other (for example, a modern video adapter must have at least 4 MB of memory).

Let's say a few words about trade designations. In catalogs and advertisements for the sale of computers, special designations of its characteristics have become widespread. Let's look at the method of designating the type of computer adopted in most advertisements using a specific example:

PIII-600-Intel BX/64/6.4Gb/SVGA 8Mb/CD/SB16/ATX

Here PHI is the processor type - Pentium III;

600 - processor clock frequency in MHz;

VX - type motherboard;

64 - amount of RAM in MB;

6.4Gb - volume hard drive- 6.4 GB;

SVGA - video card type;

8Mb - amount of video memory in MB;

CD - indicates the presence of a CD drive;

SB16 - type sound card(Sound Blaster);

Clock frequency. - concept and types. Classification and features of the category "Clock frequency." 2017, 2018.

Of all technical characteristics The most known processor speed among users is the clock speed. But few non-specialists fully understand what it is. More detailed information about this will help to better understand the operation of computing systems. Especially when using multi-core processors that have certain operating features that are not known to everyone, but which should be taken into account when operating a computer.

For a long time, the main efforts of developers were aimed specifically at increasing the clock frequency. Only recently has there been a tendency to develop and improve computer architecture, increase the amount of cache memory, and the number of processor cores. However, the processor clock speed does not go unnoticed.

What is this parameter - processor clock speed?

Let’s try to figure out what “processor clock speed” is. This value characterizes the number of calculations that the processor can perform in one second. Consequently, a processor with a higher clock frequency also has higher performance, i.e. capable of performing a greater number of operations in a certain period of time.

Most modern processors have clock speeds between 1 and 4 GHz. This value is defined as the product of the base frequency and a certain coefficient. In particular the processor Intel Core i7 920 has its own clock frequency of 2660 Hz, which is obtained due to the base bus frequency of 133 MHz and a factor of 20. Some manufacturers produce processors that can be overclocked to greater performance. For example, AMD's Black Edition and Intel's K-series line. It is worth noting that, despite the importance of this characteristic, it is not decisive when choosing a computer. Clock speed only partially affects processor performance.

Single-core processors have practically sunk into oblivion, and are rarely used in modern computing devices. This is caused by the development of the IT industry, the progress of which never ceases to amaze. Even among experts, you can sometimes come across a misconception about how to calculate the clock speed of a processor with two or more cores. A common misconception is that the clock speed must be multiplied by the number of cores. For example, a 4-core processor with a clock frequency of 3 GHz will have an integrated frequency of 12 GHz, i.e. 4x3=12. But this is not true.

Let's explain this at simple example . Let's take a pedestrian walking at a speed of 4 km/h - this is a single-core processor with a frequency of 4 GHz. A 4-core processor with a clock speed of 4 GHz is already 4 pedestrians walking at the same speed of 4 km/h. Indeed, in this case, the speed of pedestrians is not summed up, and we cannot say that they move at a speed of 16 km/h. We are simply talking about four pedestrians walking together at a speed of 4 km/h each. The same analogy can be applied to a multi-core processor. Thus, we can say that a 4-core processor with a clock speed of 4 GHz simply has four cores, each of which has the same frequency - 4 GHz. A simple and logical conclusion follows from this: the number of processor cores affects only its performance, and does not increase the total clock frequency of the computing device.