CPU storage and cache flashcards

Question	Answer
What does CPU stand for?	Central processing unit
What are the 3 main CPU functions?	Fetch, Decode, Execute
Which form of storage is the fastest?	Cache
Where is the cache located?	Inside the CPU
What is the benefit of more cores?	The CPU can do more than one thing at once
What does a faster clock speed mean?	The CPU takes less time to perform functions
Which is the fastest storage after cache?	RAM
Why is most data stored on the hard drive?	The cache and ram are too small, and they lose their data when there is no power
Which storage is the fastest outside of the CPU?	The RAM
Why are hard drives not used to store working information?	They are too slow, and have to rotate to find data
What unit is clock speed measured in?	Hertz
What does Hertz measure	Instructions per second
What is virtual memory?	It stores information from RAM that is not needed urgently
What are modern CPU's clockspeeds measured in?	Gigahertz (1 billion operations/second)
Where is data stored while the cpu is working on it	CPU registers
How many levels of cache are there?	3
What is level 2 cache used for	Storing data to be transferred to level 1
How many operations can 1 core do at once	1
Where is data stored after it has been processed	The register
What is the fastest memory that is shared between all cores	Level 3
Why is more cache better for performance	The CPU can access more data at a faster speed
What does the control unit do	It fetches data from RAM and passes it to cache and ALU
What does ALU stand for	Arithmetic Logic Unit

Resource summary

	Created by Joe Hughes almost 8 years ago