We've gotten used to throwing around the term CPU core, the part of your processor that does the actual, you know, processing.
We understand that more cores are usually better, especially for applications like video editing.
But what exactly makes a core different from the rest of the CPU?
And how exactly do they work? It's probably useful to first define what a core is not.
Cores don't handle I.O. or input output from the rest of the system as there's a separate part of the CPU die that deals with that.
Nor do they provide you with the graphics. That is the responsibility of an integrated GPU, which also sits on a different part of the die.
So now let's look at what a core does do by talking about the different parts of a core.
Let's start out with the ALU or Arithmetic Logic Unit.
The ALU does exactly what it sounds like. It's the part of your computer that does the thinking.
More specifically, it handles mathematical operations and also carries out logical operations such as comparing different values.
Although this might make the ALU sound like a fancy calculator,
the programming languages that enable everything you do on your computer rely on math and formal logic that the ALU can understand.
Cores often also have a floating point unit, which is similar to an ALU,
but deals with number sets that have their decimal points in different places.
And you can learn more about what this means and why it's important in this video right up here.
But how do the ALU and the FPU know what to work on?
Well, data is fed to these units by registers.
These are temporary holding places for whatever the CPU core has to process next.
One type of register, called an input register, holds the data that the CPU needs to process,
while another type of register, called an instruction register, tells the CPU what to do with that data.
So if the system needs to multiply 6 and 3, it will place 6 and 3 into the input registers
and a multiply instruction into the instruction register.
The ALU will then figure out the product, 18 in this case,
and send the result to yet another part of the core called an accumulator.
The accumulator then sends the result to the cache,
which is a small amount of extremely fast memory built into each core.
This data can then be read by the program that requested it. And by the way, the cache sends data the other direction as well.
Specifically, it holds the data and the instruction the CPU has to process and execute before that data enters the ALU.
Now, at the beginning of all this, the data is initially fetched from your main system RAM,
but having it in the cache before the cores need to process it makes your PC run much faster.
Once the CPU core finishes working on one instruction, it of course has to move on to the next one.
So another part of the core is called the instruction pointer.
It contains the location and memory where the CPU should load the next instruction from.
But what ties all of it together? To find the answer out, we actually have to go outside the cores themselves.
The CPU features a memory management unit or MMU that's separate from the cores
that directs the data that flows between RAM and the CPU cores, kind of like a traffic cop.
And the CPU die also has a control unit that manages the cores by synchronizing their different parts
so that they work together fluidly. To do so, the control unit uses a clock signal that runs at a specific clock rate.
That same number you see on your CPU or computer's label given in gigahertz or billions of clock cycles per second.
Fast enough to help you watch this video. So hopefully now you understand the difference between a CPU core and the other parts of your processor.
And we know this was a very simplified high level overview of a very complicated device like a CPU.
We don't exactly have time to get into a whole PhD dissertation here on Tech Quicky,
but maybe you'll find one of those down in the comments. So thanks for watching guys, if you liked this video, hit like, hit subscribe,
and hit us up in the comments with your suggestions for topics that we should cover in the future.