a computer's processing speed??

Question

What's the proper definiton of a computer's processing speed, plz dont just say clock speed?
And what factors affect a computers processing speed??

Answer 1

Whenever Intel or another manufacturer makes a new CPU, or the chip that runs on the motherboard with a fan over it because it runs hot, they test to see how fast it can run routine programs like spreadsheets, graphics and multimedia.
The mhz or ghz number reflects how quickly the CPU can go through and process the many digital bits that make the program work and is usually just an average of how it processes different types of programs. This means that chips with higher average cycle speeds may not be faster at running graphics on an intense new graphics loaded videogame than another chip with a lower average cycle number!
However, most graphics cards have their own CPU run the graphics rather than making the main CPU do it so this may not be an issue, but the CPU does anything you don't have a card for - so if you don't have a graphics card the main CPU has to do everything!
PC magazines usually have articles on CPUs that give the cycles of video, graphics, etc. seperately so people can see whether the new chip can run video, graphics, etc faster than another chip by other manufacturers.
Don't assume the higher Ghz on a chip will make it better, because it's just an average and may not be faster than a lower cycle Ghz chip at doing what you want the computer to do for you!

Answer 2

First off, to the people that just said, whichever one is higher is better, ignore them, they are sadly uninformed. Ghz tells you one thing, how many clock cycles in a given amount of time. 1.8Ghz means 1.8 billion clock cycles a second, 2Ghz is 2 billion, and 3Gz is 3 billion. It does not however tell you how much information is processed each clock cycle. So think about it, if the 2Ghz processes ten pieces of information each clock cylce, while the 3Ghz only does two, which is going to processes more information in a given amount of time, clearly the 2Ghz one. The technical name for this is Instructins Per Cycle (IPC) and you can read more about it at the link provided. The problem is you are not going to see this listed as a specification for a processor, this information is not given. Hence the best way to compare is to use benchmarks, they give a real world measure of how two processors will perform against each other, a link to a good set of benchmarks is also provided.

Answer 3

On the most basic level, the clock speed of a CPU is determined by the number of CPU cycles per second.

Let's take for example a 100 MHz processor. Remove all other optimizations and tweaks - the most basic, '386' design of a CPU, if you will. This means that 100 ,000 ,000 cycles - or complex mathematical operations - can be performed per second.

Answer 4

has fast it can run a app,pro

Or just go to howstuffworks.com

Answer 5

Read all about it here: