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Ex 1.1.2 - Computer Speed |
| KNOWLEDGE |
| COMPUTER PERFORMANCE | ||
| The efficiency and performance of your
computer can be affected by: As well as the number of applications you are running at the same time. |
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| The processor
speed The speed at which a computer works through calculations is referred to as the processor speed and is measured in Hz (hertz), or rather megahertz (MHz) and gigahertz (GHz). The speed at which the processor (CPU) works in the typical Intel processor based PC changes almost  monthly.
In 1995 the fastest Intel processors typically operated at 90MHz. By
2005 processor speeds had increased to 3GHz (3000MHz) - more than 30 times
faster. More processor speed does not necessarily relate to a
computer "running faster". Modern software with lots of graphics, and
increasingly sound and video, require lots of processor speed and as a
result programs don't necessarily appear to run quicker today than they
did 10 years previously. However, if you try to run one of today's programs
on a machine built in 1995 you will immediately see the difference in that the processor will struggle to run the application at a reasonable
speed. In 2006/7 Intel started to provide chips with Duel and also
Quad core processors which doubled and quadrupled the speed of the
processor. |
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| The RAM RAM (Random Access Memory) is the short term memory available for temporarily storing applications and data whilst you are creating word  processed
documents or spreadsheet workbooks. If you close down an application
or document it will be removed from the RAM memory. The RAM memory
will then be free to allow other programs to run more quickly - the more
applications open at any one time the more slowly the system will run. If your computer
power supply is lost whilst you are working all the information in the RAM
will also be lost. A typical computer will have 1GB or 2GB of
RAM available to it (as at 2008). The more RAM you have generally the quicker
your computer will work and the more applications you can have open at the
same time. Information is processed in RAM more
quickly than in ROM or than by the hard
disc.In addition to the term RAM many other acronyms are also used to identify RAM. These include SRAM (Static Random Access Memory), DRAM (Dynamic Random Access Memory) and also SDRAM. The latest RAM acronym (as of 2008) is 1GB DDR SDRAM where DDR stands for double data rate and 1GB is the amount of RAM available on the individual chip(s) in the machine. |
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| The hard disc Data has to be written to and retrieved from the hard disc all the time your computer is working. Temporary files are saved to the hard disc in the "background" when you are writing a Word document and countless 
files are stored on your hard disc as you surf the Internet. The
speed at which data is accessed from your hard disc clearly therefore
affects the overall performance of your computer. One factor to note
is that over a period of time data saved to a hard disc that is quite full
tends to get fragmented or spread around the disc surface rather than
being in one continuous string. When this happens it clearly takes
longer for the data to be retrieved as the disc has to be spun all over
the place to access the data. This can be overcome by running
special system defrag software which comes as part of the operating system
software. |
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| FURTHER INFORMATION | ||
| To read further information about the topic(s) discussed in this exercise try visiting the following web site(s): www.intel.com - Processor Manufacturer www.orcalogic.co.uk - RAM Supplier www.westerndigital.com - Hard Disk Manufacturer |
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