I’ve read that a newer CPUs can be much faster than an older CPU even if both have the same amount of cores and the same clock speed. It says that newer CPUs can do certain tasks faster. How is that possible with the same architecture?

Question

I’ve read that a newer CPUs can be much faster than an older CPU even if both have the same amount of cores and the same clock speed. It says that newer CPUs can do certain tasks faster. How is that possible with the same architecture?

In: Technology

Answer 1

In simple terms it is this. You can do “more per cycle” if you have in a way “pre recorded” potential things it can do and do what is called branch prediction, or what another user also already mentioned speculative execution where it excecutes a given potential path of the given code ahead of time and discards it if it made a wrong “guess”.

Overall its something that is a bit too complex for ELI5.

I storngly suggest to read the book “But how does it know” which explains a lot about CPU architecture.