The
processor (called
CPU, for
Central Processing Unit)
is an electronic circuit that operates at the speed of an internal
clock thanks to a quartz crystal that, when subjected to an electrical
currant, send pulses, called "
peaks". The
clock speed (also called
cycle),
corresponds to the number of pulses per second, written in Hertz (Hz).
Thus, a 200 MHz computer has a clock that sends 200,000,000 pulses per
second. Clock frequency is generally a multiple of the system frequency (
FSB,
Front-Side Bus), meaning a multiple of the
motherboard frequency.
With each clock peak, the processor performs an action that corresponds to an instruction or a part thereof. A measure called
CPI (
Cycles Per Instruction)
gives a representation of the average number of clock cycles required
for a microprocessor to execute an instruction. A microprocessorâ€(TM)s
power can thus be characterized by the number of instructions per second
that it is capable of processing.
MIPS (millions of instructions per second) is the unit used and corresponds to the processor frequency divided by the
CPI.