When you buy aCPU microchip , it has a " maximal " hurrying rating stamped on the chip ’s case . For example , the cow dung might point that it is a 3 - GHz part . This means that the Saratoga chip will do without error when executed at or below that speed within the chip ’s normal temperature parameter .
There are two affair that limit a splintering ’s fastness :
transmitting delaysoccur in the wire that connect things together on a splintering . The " telegram " on a crisp are incredibly small-scale Al or pig strip etch onto the silicon . A chip is nothing more than a assemblage of electronic transistor and wires that hook them together , and a electronic transistor is nothing but an on / off switch . When a switching changes its nation from on to off or off to on , it has to eithercharge up or drain the wirethat connects the junction transistor to the next transistor down the line . Imagine that a transistor is currently " on . " The wire it is driving is replete with negatron . When the switch change to " off , " it has to enfeeble off those electrons , and that takes time . The self-aggrandising the wire , the longer it read .
As the size of it of the wire has beget small over the year , the metre required to exchange State has gotten small , too . But there is some limit – charging and draining the wires takes fourth dimension . That limit levy a speed limit on the cow chip .
There is also a minimal amount of time that a junction transistor get toflip state of matter . transistor are chained together in string , so the transistor delays tot up . On a complex chip like the G5 , there are probable to be recollective chains , and the distance of the long chain circumscribe the maximum speed of the entire chip .
in conclusion , there isheat . Every fourth dimension the electronic transistor in a logic gate change country , they leak out a minuscule electricity . This electricity make heating . As transistor sizing funk , the amount of wasted current ( and therefore warmth ) has decline , but there is still heat being created . The quicker a chip give-up the ghost , the more high temperature it return . oestrus build - up puts another limitation on speed .
you could endeavor to run your crisp at a fast speed – doing that is calledoverclocking . On many chips ( specially sure models of the Celeron , it run very well . Sometimes , you have to cool the cow chip unnaturally to overclock it . Other prison term , you may not overclock it at all because you immediately bump into contagion delays .
For more data on CPU and overclocking , see the next pageboy .