Year 1 - CPU - Understanding hardware technologies for game platforms

CPU - Understanding hardware technologies for game platforms

Task 1:

Clock Speed:

Intel Core i7-7Y75 - 3.6 GHz

AMD A10-7890K - 4.3 GHz

Xbox 360 - 3.2 GHz

Xbox One - 1.75 GHz

PS4 - 1.6 GHz

Cores:

Intel Core i7-7Y75 - Quad Core

AMD A10-7890K - Quad Core

Xbox 360 - 3 Core

Xbox One - 8 Core

PS4 - 8 Core

Cache:

Intel Core i7-7Y75 - 4 MB

AMD A10-7890K - 4MB

Xbox 360 - 1MB

Xbox One - 4MB

PS4 - 4MB

Task 2:

What are CPU's?:

Central Processing Unit - It gathers and processes instructions that it collects from deciphering the code in programs and other files. It's four primary function are made up of: fetch, decode, execute and write back.

CPU Speed:

The clock speed is generally measured in GHz which is decided on how many clock cycles it can perform per second. 1 GHz is 1,000,000,000 clock cycles.

Cores:

A processing unit that reads instructions to perform certain actions which are chained together so they make up a computer experience when out into real time. A core can run a single program unless it supports hardware threads like hyper-threading on on Intel CPUs, then it may run multiple. Tasks that are run tend to be software processes and threads that the OS schedules.

Cache:

Reduces the average energy or time to access data from the main storage of memory. The cache is a faster but smaller memory, storing data copies from the most used main memory locations.

FSB (Front-Side Bus):

Connects the computer's processor to the RAM and other components on the motherboard such as: system chipset, AGP card, PCI devices and other peripherals. Because of it being the main path from the processer to the rest of the motherboard it is also known as the System Bus. It's speed is also measured in MHz and GHz but the computers' processors run faster than their System bus.

References:

http://www.intel.co.uk/content/www/uk/en/processors/core/core-i7-processor.html

http://shop.amd.com/en-gb/components/processors/ecxCurUK10146853

http://uk.ign.com/wikis/xbox-one/Xbox_One_Hardware_Specs

http://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/xbox-one-vs-xbox-360-spec-showdown/

https://www.playstation.com/en-gb/explore/ps4/tech-specs/
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/cpu-technology-explained/
http://www.howtogeek.com/177790/why-you-cant-use-cpu-clock-speed-to-compare-computer-performance/
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/processor-core-makeuseof-explains-2/
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/19225859/difference-between-core-and-processor
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CPU_cache
http://techterms.com/definition/fsb