– Why does clock speed matter on a CPU, and why do some top-tier CPU’s have lower clock speeds than some from nearly 10 generations ago?

Question

I have a good understanding of what clock speed is, but why does it matter?

For the second question, I was wondering since for example, the new i9-14900K has a base clock speed of 3.2 GHz, whereas my previous desktop CPU, the i7-4790K, had a base clock speed of 4.0 GHz. Why hasn’t this number steadily gone up thought the years?

In: Technology

Answer 1

Analogy time:

Imagine clock speed is how much cargo a vehicle can haul. Higher clock speed means more stuff can get hauled from a to b. Lower click speed means less stuff can get hauled from a to b.

When CPUs were first developed, they were attaining higher clock speeds with each generation. Even high by todays standards like a Pentium 4ghz. The problem is, that’s just one “core”. Which means it’s only one large vehicle that can go from a to b. Then back to a.

Since then, they’ve designed more cores (more vehicles). Starting out, those cores/vehicles were smaller. But having more of them actually meant that a 2.2ghz dual core was actually faster (in some applications) than a single 4.0ghz.

We now have 32+ core cores that max out above 4.0ghz each.

So that’s like having 32+ vehicles hauling goods back and forth instead of just one.