Components of a computer system

Components of a computer system

1. CPU

   • The CPU is commonly know as the brain of the computer.
   • It's performance can be altered by the amount of cores in the CPU
   • The amount of cores increases the amount of FETCH, DECODE, EXECUTE cycles done which will increase the speed of the computer
   • It stand for central processing unit
   • Most calculations take place here
   • It uses the system - FETCH, DECODE, EXECUTE
   • CPU components
     • They Fetch, decode and execute from the RAM

2. ROM

   • ROM stands for read only memory
   • The ROM's job is to start up the computer
   • Without the ROM the computer wouldn't turn on
   • It holds all of the boot up instructions

3. RAM

   • RAM stands for random access memory
   • The RAM's job is temporary memory
   • It is memory that is working when the computer is on, but when it is turned off, the memory is gone
   • The bigger the RAM, the more windows you can have open at the same time.

4. Virtual memory

   • Virtual memory (VM) temporarily transfers data from RAM to disk storage
   • It appears to exist as main storage although most of it is secondary storage
   • If the storage is low, then the virtual memory take storage from the RAM and stores it itself

5. Clock speeds

   • How fast a CPU cycle can be done in a second
   • 1Hz - 1 instruction per second
   • 1KHz - 1000 instructions per second
   • 1MHz - 100,000 instructions per second
   • 1GHz - 100,000,000 instructions per second
   • Computers now would run on around 44GHz

6. Cache memory

   • It is a RAM memory that a computer microprocessor can access more quickly than a regular RAM