The Central Processing Unit (CPU)

what is the CPU?

It is hardware within a computer system whose purpose is to process data

what are the characteristics of a CPU?

Clockspeed, CPU cache and cores/processors

what operations does the CPU use to process data

Fetching, decoding and executing. The CPU fetches something by retrieving and finding instructions from the memory. These instructions are then decoded by being broken down into different parts and sent to different parts of the CPU so that it can better understand the instruction. Once this has happened the CPU can now run the instruction which produces an output and this happens during the executing operation

what are cores?

They are processors that allow multiple instructions to be carried out at the same time. The more cores a computer system has, the more instructions it can execute simultaneously, giving the computer system a better performance

what is clockspeed?

how many cycles can be completed per second and is usually measured in Hertz. The quicker the Clockspeed the more quickly instructions can be carried out so the better the performance

what is CPU cache?

it is a form of computer memory that stores frequently accesses instructions and data so that they can accessed more quickly. The larger the cache, the more data and instructions that can be stored so the better the performance