Clock Speed

Clock Speed

The clock rate is the fundamental rate in cycles per second (measured in hertz) at which a computer performs its most basic operations such as adding two numbers or transferring a value from one processor register to another. A CPU executes a certain amount of instructions within a grouping called a cycle. The speed of the CPU is measured in how many cycles it can perform in a given second. A speed of one cycle per second is called a hertz. Therefore a CPU that has a frequency of 1 million cycles per second has the speed of a Megahertz, and a CPU that has a frequency of 1 billion cycles per second is a Gigahertz.

The CPU speed is a measurement of how many operations it can execute. The Clock speed is the frequency with which a processor executes instructions. This frequency is measured in millions of cycles per second, or megahertz (MHz). There is actually a “clock” of sorts within the CPU. This clock signal is generated by a quartz crystal, which vibrates as electricity passes through it, thereby generating a steady pulse to every component synchronized with the signal. A system cycle is generated by this pulse (called a clock “tick”), which sends a signal through the processor telling it to perform another operation. To transfer data to and from memory, an 8086 computer needed four cycles plus “wait states.” Wait states allow the processor to wait for the slower speed RAM that was used in 8086-based computers. Generally

speaking, the higher the MHz value, the faster the PC will be.

Note-we will study various generation of processors and compare them on the basis of their speed of processing and no of bits it can handle simultaneously.as soon as generation changed speed increased and simultaneously the no of bits it can handle also increased

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