How A CPU Works
Under The Hood

Let's take a brief look at how a CPU works. Although different processors on the market will have varying specifications, most computer processors these days are very similar in design and architecture.

The processor in your computer is responsible for making all the mathematical calculations, and could be regarded as the brains of the computer if you want to look at it that way.

The computer processor is a very complex piece of hardware, able to make millions of lightning fast calculations to run your computer smoothly. Yet at the same time the basic concept of how it actually works is fairly simple to understand.

What you should understand first is that CPUs store their intructions in computer memory. When it needs to do something it finds the stored instruction code from the computer's memory. It then needs to decode the intruction code to find out what actually needs to be done. After decoding, the CPU will perform calculations and then either store the result back in memory, to a disk, or to the computer display.

The number of instructions that a CPU can execute per second is determined by a few different factors, and is one of the main ways to measure how powerful a processor is. Like a lot of things in life, with processors you pretty much get what you pay for. The fastest and most powerful CPUs will be the most expensive.

If you want to learn how a CPU works in a lot more detail, check out the following article. It covers all the important points you need to know.

How Microprocessors Work.

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