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What is a CPU?

The CPU, or Central Processing Unit, sometimes also referred to as the processor, is the brain of your computer. It is one of the most sophisticated pieces of technologies available for consumers, and acts as a highly efficient calculator to process requests from your operating system, software and games.

It sits at the center of the motherboard, and takes in inputs from all other parts of your PC, including your keyboard, mouse and other peripherals, and performs the task or processes the outputs into the software.

As the name suggests, it is entirely central to your computer; it is one of the few parts of your PC that is absolutely necessary. Without a CPU, your PC would not even start.

Core, threads and multitasking

Given your processor is the main interface for most of the parts in your PC, its architecture and design are critical in giving you the most performance. Modern CPUs are best known for their ability to multitask, using multiple CPU cores. Each core will take on a separate task; therefore, more cores typically mean that a CPU will be better at multitasking, or in certain cases, perform better in certain games or programs. While some processors only have one core (and are designed so to draw as little power as possible), most processors today may include anywhere between 4 and 12 cores:

4 cores:

AMD Ryzen 3
Intel Core i3

6 cores:

AMD Ryzen 5
Intel Core i5

8 cores:

AMD Ryzen 7
Intel Core i7
Intel Core i9 (Rocket Lake)

10, 12, 14, 16, and 18 cores:

AMD Ryzen 9
Intel Core i9 (Comet Lake)

Some of the highest performing CPUs, such as the AMD Threadripper series, will feature 24, 32, or even 64 cores!

Cores, speed and frequency

Performance of a processor is not only driven by its number of cores. The performance of each core, and how they are linked together and with the rest of the system, matters just as much. How quickly a core can process instructions is known as its Core Clock, or Frequency. It is measured in GHz, with 1 GHz meaning that a core can execute 1 billion operations a second. Nowadays the Core Clock of most consumer CPUs stands between 2.5GHz (as found in the Intel Core i7-11700, for instance) and 4.1GHz (as found in the Intel Core i5-10600K).

This is something you can change yourself, provided your motherboard allows for it. This is known as overclocking. Be careful if you are trying to improve your computer’s performance through overclocking, as it can induce instability, and in some cases physically damage your CPU and/or motherboard. This kind of damage is also something we test for in the CPU and other parts for sale at Tisk.