1. The CPU is sometimes called the "brain" of a computer. What does CPU stand for?
2. Fill in the blanks below.
3. Who is the image below and the paragraph describing?
4. The Neumann architecture design consists of a Control Unit, Arithmetic and Logic Unit (ALU), Memory Unit, Registers and Inputs/Outputs. One of the main purposes of the CPU is to ...
5. The speed that a CPU works at is measured in _____, Hz. Modern processors often run so fast that gigahertz, GHz, is used instead. One gigahertz is one billion _____.
6. The CPU market for desktop (home) computers is controlled by two companies: 1. _____ and Advanced Micro Devices (usually shortened to 2. ______).
7. Many CPUs today can do more than 1 billion (1,000,000,000) instructions in a single second. In general, the more a CPU can do in a given time, the faster it is. Read the paragraph below and fill in the blanks.
8. Which of the following tasks can a CPU NOT do?
9. Types of CPUs: read the paragraph below and fill in the blanks.
10. The performance of the CPU is directly related to the performance of your personal computer. There are four factors (The 4 Cs) to consider. Fill in the blanks.
11. Read the following excerpt on 'Clock Speed'. Is it true or false?
12. The following paragraph also describes Clock Speed. Can you fill in the blanks?
13. The clock speed can be simply defined as:
14. Two brains are better than one right? And four brains are even better. Multiple cores are a key factor in performance. Read the following paragraph and fill in the blanks.
15. Although CPUs fetch instructions from RAM, there is another place they can get instructions from, called _______.
16. Cache is like RAM but the one difference is that it is much ___________ to read and write from it as compared to RAM. This obviously speeds up CPU performance.
17. Which of the following statements is true of CPU cache?
18. The less frequently certain data or instructions are accessed, the ____ down the cache level the data or instructions are written.
19. Another important characteristic of a processor is its word size. Read the interesting note below and see if you can define the term 'word size'.
20. Read the excerpt below about the Von Neumann architecture and fill in the blanks.
21. Read the excerpt below about the Von Neumann architecture and fill in the blanks.
22. This diagram shows a simplistic outline of the architecture of a CPU. What does the Arithmetic and Logic Unit do? (ALU)
23. A dual core processor may have twice the power but it does not always perform twice as fast. Is this true?
24. It is possible for a computer with a slower processor but larger cache memory to be faster in system performance than computers with faster processors but limited cache.
25. There are levels of cache. Level 1 is extremely fast but small (between 2 - 64KB). Some CPUs also have Level 3 cache. How would you define Level 2?
26. When an instruction is fetched from 'main memory' it is copied into the cache. Why?
27. True or False? All processor activities begin on a clock pulse, although some activities may take more than one clock cycle to complete.
28. CPU designs vary greatly but most of them all share the same key components including the clock, control unit, arithmetic logic unit, registers and buses. What does the control unit do?
29. Read the definition below. Which part of the CPU does this?
30. A bus is an integral part of the CPU. What is a bus?
31. The processor is connected to main memory by three main buses. What are their names?
32. The below diagram shows a list of registers in the CPU.What are registers?
33. The memory unit consists of RAM, sometimes referred to as primary or main memory. Unlike a hard drive (secondary memory), this memory is fast and also directly accessible by the CPU.
34. Instructions data and program data were not always stored in the same memory. The 'stored program concept' and the architecture behind most modern computers is called:
35. The object in the image below was a 4 bit ______________________ released by Intel in 1971. It was among the very first produced and had a clock speed of 740kHz.
36. A CPU is placed on the motherboard. The following diagram shows a labelled motherboard - where would the CPU be placed?
37. On the motherboard on your computer, the tiny little CPU is often placed underneath a fan (like shown in the image. What is this called and why is it needed?
38. A Central Processing Unit is also referred to as a microprocessor. True or false?
39. What common household devices, other than computers, contain microprocessors?
40. Read the excerpt below and decide whether the whole statement about modern CPUs is true or false.
41. Ever wondered how your brain is involved in executing an instruction? For instance, if someone says "Pass the salt"....what happens?
42. The fetch-decode-execute cycle is the sequence of steps that the CPU follows to process instructions. This is also sometimes called the ...
43. Here is a diagram (Source: BBC Bitesize) of the Fetch Decode Execute cycle. Out of the following options, what happens first?
44. The next steps that occur in the Fetch Decode Execute cycle are shown in the excerpt below. Can you fill in the blanks?
45. The three stages of the FDE cycle are 'Fetch', 'Decode' and 'Execute'. What happens in the fetch stage?
46. What happens in the decode stage of the FDE cycle?
47. What happens in the 'execute' part of the FDE cycle?
48. Why is the fetch decode execute cycle called a cycle?
49. Describe the role of the 'program counter' in the fetch decode execute cycle.
50. The program counter stores the memory address of the next instruction to be fetched. What happens when that address has been used?
51. The image below shows a creative website that made a million dollars by creating a website with a million pixels and selling pixels to customers. What is a pixel?
52. What is the purpose of the Memory Address register?
53. Which processor has the fastest clock speed?
54. What are the effects of using a processor with more cores?
55. What is the following paragraph likely to be describing?