CPU
This is a beginners guide to CPU's.
Please use the articles menu if you require more in depth articles. The CPU is
often called the main processor of your PC. CPU stands for Central Processing
Unit. When you are buying a PC from a high street store the main selling feature
is always the speed of the CPU. You will notice it will say 2.4Ghz or 3Ghz PC.
The truth is that the CPU is set at these speeds and has no relevance on what
else you could have inside your PC.
What does the CPU look like?
The CPU will likely be the larger of
the chips on the mainboard inside your PC. If you have bought the PC from new
the CPU will be covered by a heatsink and fan. The heatsink and fan are
extremely important. Without these the CPU would get too hot to work and
possibly melt or burn out. Be very careful to replaces the fan if you remove it
to have a look at your CPU.
What does the CPU do?
The CPU is the main processor of
your PC. Everything that goes on in your PC at some point goes through your CPU.
In reference to the human body the CPU is brain of the PC. It is artificial
thinking but the CPU is where all the logic is applied. As a very basic example
computer code is basically mathematics. if you wanted to calculate 2+7 you would
need an input an output and a processor to add the logic. The logic in this case
is simple addition. You would input 2+7 on a keyboard. This would be registered
and sent to the CPU for analysis. The CPU would see that the addition logic is
required and use this inbuilt logic to send the answer of 9.
How do you measure the speed of a
CPU?
The CPU's speed is a measure of MHz
(megahertz) or more recently GHz (gigahertz). a chip with a megahertz rating of
900Mhz would be able to complete 900Million cycles every second. However don't
be fully deceived by this figure alone. This figure only shows how many clock
cycles the CPU can do in a second. How much being done in each cycle is another
matter. I urge you to check out some benchmarks on CPU's before you you decide
that the one with a faster rating has the best performance. Unfortunately the
need for speed and higher clock rating have driven the CPU industry to work on
this factor without really seeing what the performance of these chips are like.
Types of CPU
There are two main desktop CPU
manufacturers, they are Intel and AMD. Both of these companies have a power CPU
and a Budget CPU. The Power CPU's are the Pentium 4 from Intel and the Athlon XP
from AMD. The budget CPU's are the Celeron from Intel and the Duron from AMD.
Price is a big factor between these CPU's. Check the latest prices of these
CPU's below.
AMD Athlon 64
AMD Athlon XP (T-Bred or Barton)
AMD Duron
Intel Pentium 4
Intel Celeron
Socket Types
Each range of CPU fits into a
specific socket on your motherboard. motherboards are design with one socket
type and cannot be made to take another. Current AMD CPU's use a socket A
connection. Pentium 4 CPU's use socket 478 (because the CPU has 478 pins to
connect to the motherboard)
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