The operation of any computer is provided by one small device (microcircuit), which is called the central processor. This is a silicon substrate with layers sprayed onto it containing structural elements: an arithmetic logic device (for processing data), a control device (for determining the order of execution of commands), registers (for storing data), internal cache memory (to speed up the exchange with the operational memory), internal bus (for transferring information between the functional parts of the processor), etc.
The central processor, or rather its clock frequency, determines the speed of the entire system. The clock frequency provides synchronization, i.e. consistency of actions of individual blocks inside the processor and beyond. In modern processors for personal computers, this characteristic is units of gigahertz (GHz), which means that it is capable of performing several billion elementary actions in one second. Also, the main characteristics of the processor include bit depth, the amount of internal cache, the number of cores, socket.
To ensure a given computer performance , first of all, it is necessary to choose the right CPU. Consider this device in more detail. Processor types differ in their internal architecture, for example, they distinguish pipeline and superscalar processors. The former increase productivity by dividing the process of executing commands into separate stages, while the processor simultaneously processes several commands at different stages at once. The more steps the conveyor has, the higher the clock frequency and, consequently, productivity. But only within reasonable limits.
Suprescalar processors, using several cores, can parallelize the process of program execution, however, this requires software that will allow you to split the code into separate threads that can be executed in parallel. At the same time, the presence, for example, of two cores inside the processor does not guarantee a double performance increase, since not every program is capable of breaking into two equal streams, not to mention four or eight streams.
The central processor is so named because it is the main computing device in the computer, but not the only one. In addition to it, the system has controllers for various devices and interfaces, as well as processors for processing video, sound, etc.
Initially, the computer was conceived and created exclusively as a device for computing, therefore the central processor was “responsible” for all processes in the system: input of information, processing (mathematical transformations), output of information. Now users are more and more tuned to other types of information, such as text, graphics, video, sound. Therefore, the central processor gradually lost its comprehensive zone of influence, which belonged only to it, and shared responsibility with other computing devices.