Here are some of the reading questions as provided by our experts in computer architecture.
1: Briefly describe the three main functional units of a CPU and their roles
The Control Unit
This controls the flow of data within the CPU and between the CPU and other components
It fetches instructions from the main memory, decodes them and allocates the CPU to them.
Arithmetic Logic Unit (ALU)
This performs the mathematical and logical operations. The mathematical operations include; addition, subtraction, multiplication and division while the logical operations include AND, OR and NOT.
Registers
These are small high speed memory units located within the CPU that store data that is currently being processed by the CPU. They are used to hold instruction pointers, data pointers, and temporary data.
They improve performance of the computers being reducing the speed at which computers access data and instructions.
Explain the difference between Control Unit and the Arithmetic Logic Unit.
The Control Unit controls the flow of data within the CPU and between the CPU and other components while the ALU performs the mathematical and logical operations on specific data sent to it.
Your are editing a high resolution video on your computer, but the software is running sluggishly. The video editing software requires a lot of power.
Explain how different components of the CPU (ALU, registers, memory) might be involved in processing video editing tasks.
The ALU is responsible in the combination of the different features of the editing software in order to bring out a good video. Performs the necessary mathematical and logical operations on the video data, such as color adjustments, filters, and transformations. It aIso perform encoding and decoding on the video data
Registers are used to bring closer the frequently accessed tools of the editing software through providing frequently used tools as suggestions to the user. They hold the instructions or the commands of the editing software that will be applied on the video.
They store things like pixel of values, color information and the coordinates as the video is being edited.
Increase in the number of registers in the computer increases the speed at which the commands of the software are executed on the data and vice versa.
Memory as far as ROM is where the instructions that run the computer are stored. These instructions enable the video editing software to run smoothly on the computer.
Memory as far as RAM enables the video editing software to access files or folders which contain data to be edited. Increase in the computer’s RAM increases the speed at which files and folders are accessed by the software.
How could limitations in the CPU’s resources (e.g., slower clock speed, fewer registers) contribute to the sluggish performance.
Slower clock speed means the CPU is also slow. Slower clock speed reduces the rate at which instructions can be executed. This causes delays in executing commands of the editing software on the video data.
Fewer registers means fewer memory of the CPU to access data and instructions, so the CPU will wait for the instructions which causes a sluggish performance. Fewer registers means that few data will be held frequently so the CPU has to constantly swap data between the registers and slower main memory leading to sluggish performance.
If you’re upgrading your computer for video editing, what CPU features would you prioritize (e.g., clock speed, number of cores)
Using or purchasing a CPU with a higher processing speed. This will increase the performance or speed of the video editing software in editing the videos.
Using turbo boost to increase the clock speed beyond the actual to improve its performance hence improving performance of the video editing software.
Increasing the cache memory size to enable quick access to processed data
Increasing the number of registers to increase the rate at which the CPU executes commands of the editing software.
