Week 02 Journal Chapter 3 from A Textbook: On the MotherBoard - Hsanokklis/2022-2023-Tech-journal GitHub Wiki

Summary: Learning how to recognize and understand the function of different parts in a computer.

Motherboard: the component of a computer that hold mostly all the electronics(such as CPU,GPU,RAM etc)

Processor Overview:

The processor is the main component on the motherboard of a computer that determines the power of the computer. It works alongside other electronic components to carry out the functions of the computer.

Its functions include: Executing instructions Performing calculations Coordinating input/output operations The processor is also known as the CPU or central processing unit(or sometimes the microprocessor). Intel and AMD are the major manufacturers of desktop/laptop processors and other manufacturers such as Motorola, VIA, Samsung, NVIDIA, Apple Inc, and Qualcomm focus more on the production of smartphone processors.

The picture on the left is a picture of an intel processor. And the picture on the left is a diagram of where you can find the processor on the motherboard.

Processor Basics:

Processors can have many different speeds. The speed of a processor is measured in gigahertz(GHz). Modern processors run at around 5GHz

1 hertz = 1 cycle/sec

1 GHz = 1 billion cycles/sec

word size/register size:

The number of bits a processor can process at one time. Modern processors have register sizes of 64 or 128 bits compared to the older processors which only had register sizes of 16 bites.

Buses:

Electronic lines inside and outside the processor that allow 1s and 0s(binary code) to travel to and from the CPU. Buses inside the CPU are known as the internal data bus. The internal data bus inside the CPU has the same amount of lines as the CPU’s register size. (ie 64 bits = 64 lines). The external data bus includes lines that carry 1s and 0s to other parts of the computer. The size of the bus means better performance on the computer because more data can be processed at one time.

ALUs(Arithmetic Logic Unit): Part of the processor that does the calculations and comparison logic for the computer.

Control Unit: Makes sure all the activities inside the processor are organized and coordinated

I/O unit: Is in charge of managing the data within the processor(entering/leaving).

Registers: High speed storage area for 1s and 0s before they are processed.

Here is a diagram of how all those pieces fit together.

Pipelines: Internal busses in the CPU that operate at the same time. There are ways to maximize the pipelines in the CPU. Increase the CPU clock speed, which would make the CPU process data faster Breaking the tasks into smaller tasks, which would be changing the structure of the pipeline, instead of performing 5 big tasks, the CPU would break up these tasks into smaller steps which would make it more efficient. Have multiple pipelines to be able to process even more. EX: 32 or 64 bit CPU with 2 pipelines A message can be in one pipeline A photo can be in another pipeline

Processors can have 29 pipelines. Split up where 12 pipelines are for integers and 17 pipelines are for floating point numbers.

*floating point number is a number that can include a decimal point

Speed: Every processor has a model number and you can see the speed of the processor by looking at the model number. Processors do not always run at their maximum speed because:

Coding in an application
User switching between applications
Not enough bus width
Not enough RAM installed

*Sometimes it's hard to see the model number on a CPU because they have devices attached to them for cooling.

Cache: Fast memory that increases speed of processor functionality. The CPU will work most efficiently when the data is constantly flowing through it. Cache is essentially the easiest and most accessible place to store memory.

In order from fastest to slowest:

Cache(which is inside the processor)
RAM
- If the processor cannot find something in the cache it looks to the RAM
Hard Drive
- If the processor cannot find something in the RAM it looks to the hard drive, which makes it the slowest and least accessible because it's third down in the chain of access.

This is a chart of the data access hierarchy, the CPU access whatever is close to it first.

When looking at the performance of a system, when there is more cache the system can process data faster, but there are other factors that can deter that speed. The speed of the system also can depend on:

A chip that manages the cache memory called the cache controller
System design
Amount of hard drive space
Speed of processor

When figuring out what memory your device needs you must look at applications, the OS, and hardware. Every device needs something different and depending on what you are using your device for you may need different parts for your system.

Clocking: Clock speed:

Measures the number of cycles the CPU runs per second. The motherboard makes a clock signal that controls the transfer of 1s and 0s to and from the CPU. Clock cycles can be measured in sine waves.

The clock cycle is represented by a sine wave, which can send data 4 times during a clock cycle.

Graphics Processing Unit (GPU): A processor that processes the video/graphics of a computer. This is separate from the CPU and can process graphical data quickly so that the CPU doesn’t have to worry about that.

You can see in this diagram the difference it makes when adding a GPU to your system. Your CPU can process things in your system much quicker.

Processor Cooling:

Since processors execute a lot of functions all at one time, they can overheat. This is why they need to be constantly cooled down. Some implementations of cooling down the CPU involve turning off unused parts of the processor or slowing it down when it gets too hot.

These systems are not enough to keep the CPU cooled down other measures include:

Heat sink
- metal bars/a block of metal attached to motherboard components. The heat from the component is transferred to the heat sink and then blown away by air flow.
Fan
Liquid cooling
- Liquid that is circulated through the system. Heat is transferred to the cool liquid and then the hot liquid is released outside the case.
Thermal paste
- Applied to the processor before the heat sink is attached.

Example of what heat sinks look like

Chipsets:

Chips on the motherboard that work with the CPU. They allow for certain features on the computer such as RAM, motherboard memory, capacity for 2 or more CPUs and whether the motherboard supports the newest version of PCIe(a high speed expansion bus).

The chipsets in this picture are covered by the heatsink but they are normally located fairly close to the CPU.

Guiding Questions:

The chapter portrays pipelines as an unquestioned benefit, but can you think of any downsides to pipelining, or any scenarios where pipelining may not be effective?

I think that if you have a lot of pipelines there is a potential for them to want to do the same thing at the same time. Such as trying to access the same data or component at the same time, which would inherently slow down the process you are trying to get done. I also think there is the potential for instructions to get lost along the way, which would cause a delay.

Consider the tasks you typically use your personal computer for. Would you benefit more from increasing the amount of cache/RAM (faster access, but more expensive) or disk storage (slower, but cheaper)?

I have actually run into this issue before on my phone. My old phone did not have enough ram to run what I needed to, so I got another phone with more RAM. Yes it was more expensive but it also ran everything I needed without a lot of delay. On my laptop, I need a lot of disk storage because I have a lot of files that I need to store and big applications that I use. My current laptop has 32 GB of RAM and has 1 TB of memory, so I am able to store a lot of files and access applications very quickly.