Hello, everyone! I’ve been doing some research into computer hardware lately, and one thing that I keep coming across is this idea that the speed of a processor, while important, isn’t the only thing that affects a computer’s overall performance. I’m having a bit of a hard time wrapping my head around this because I always thought that a faster processor meant a faster computer. Can anyone explain why this isn’t necessarily the case? I’m really interested to learn more about this!
In: 97
Imagine you have an abacus.
* Processor speed is how fast you can move your hand to push a bead around he abacus.
* RAM is how many beads are on the abacus.
You want to have both to be able to do calculations efficiently.
For instance:
* A super fast hand with 0 or 1 bead won’t really do any good.
* And a hundred beads with the only handy person on vacation won’t do anything either.
—–
(Computers now work on numbers like billions and trillions or higher etc, so it is more like “Processor speed is how many thousands of hands you have manipulating abacusses” and “RAM is how many warehouses full of abacuses you have.” and at that point my analogy starts to break down.)
Latest Answers