ITPEC IP April 2021 Question 10

One CPU with several processing circuits running different work at the same time — each core is a complete processing unit inside one processor.

A multi-core processor puts several cores in a single CPU package. The OS gives different threads or programs to different cores, which run them simultaneously, so the processing power rises without raising the clock frequency.

Answer (d)

Why not others:

• •(a) — several processors doing the same work to check the results is a redundant configuration such as a dual system, aimed at reliability, not a multi-core CPU
• •(b) — a quad core has twice the cores of a dual core, 4 ÷ 2 = 2, not four times; and even that is a ceiling, since work that cannot be split and the overhead of coordinating the cores reduce the gain
• •(c) — temporarily raising the clock under load is turbo boost, which changes the speed of cores, not their number

Key rule: More cores raise throughput only for work that can be divided among them; the speed-up is at most the ratio of the core counts.

Computer Component · AI-written, may contain errors