The practice of changing system settings so that the CPU runs at a faster clock speed than it was was originally manufactured for.
Control Unit
Co-ordinates flow of data on CPU. Sends timing signals. Sends control signals to components on CPU and external input/output devices.
Gigahertz
A unit of measurement for the clock speed of a CPU. Indicates speed in billions of instructions per second.
Megahertz
A unit of measurement for the clock speed of a CPU. Indicates speed in millions of instructions per second.
Clock Speed
The number of instructions a single core processor can carry out per second.
Accumulator (ACC)
Stores the result of arithmetic calculations.
Memory Data Register (MDR)
Stores the data that has just been fetched.
Memory Address Register (MAR)
Stores the address where the next data will be fetched from.
Program Counter (PC)
Stores the address of the next instruction to be run. Is incremented each time an instruction is run
Arithmetic Logic Unit (ALU)
Does all the calculations on the CPU. Contains the accumulator register.
Register
Super quick memory on the CPU. Fastest of all memory. Hold tiny amounts of data needed by the CPU.
Core
An independent processor on the CPU. Eg. Quad core = 4 processors on the same CPU.
Cache
Fast memory on the CPU. Stores regularly used data so that the CPU can access it the next time it is needed. Saves the CPU going to RAM - more cache, quicker the CPU.
Von Neumann Architecture
Describes a system where the CPU runs programs stored in memory. Programs consist of instructions and data stored in memory addresses.
