– 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

It’s very simple. If you want to add two numbers, it takes a certain number of actions (moving data from memory into registers, manipulating it, writing it back to memory). The more actions you can perform in a given time, the sooner your numbers will be added.

Think of it like a car being built on an assembly line. If you have 10,000 parts and you can install one every second, you’ll have the car done faster than the guy who takes two seconds per part.

In a computer, everything you ask the software to do requires millions of actions. The higher the clock speed, the faster those things happen.