What is clock speed of computer?
- The speed at which a microprocessor executes instructions is known as the clock speed of a computer. The clock speed is also called as clock rate and processor speed.
- Every computer contains an internal clock that regulates the rate at which instructions are executed and synchronizes all the various computer components. The CPU requires a fixed number of clock ticks (or clock cycles) to execute each instruction. The faster the clock, the faster the CPU, the more instructions the CPU can execute per second. The higher the CPU speed, the better a computer will perform, in a general sense.
- Other components can improve a computer's performance as well, like
memory (RAM) and the motherboard, as well as the number of cores that a
processor has, like dual core or quad core.
- Clock Speeds are usually determined in MHz, 1 MHz representing 1 million cycles per second, or in GHz, 1 GHz representing 1 thousand million cycles per second. The higher the CPU speed, the better a computer will perform, in a general sense.
- If a processor has dual or quad cores, the performance of a computer can increase even if the CPU speed remaining the same. For example, a dual core 3.0 GHz processor would be capable of running faster than a single core 3.0 GHz processor. Both have the same CPU speed, but the dual core processor can perform more calculations than the single core processor because it has two processing cores instead of just one. Both cores process information at the same time.
