Crash Course Computer Science #9 - Advanced CPU Designs

In the early days of electronic computing, processors were typically made faster by...

• improving the switching time of the transistors

• making more circuits on the transistors

• reducing the size of the processors

• decreasing the transistors ability to process calculations quickly

Last episode, we created a small program that did what?

• added two numbers

• multiplied two numbers

• divided two numbers

• subtracted two numbers

Modern computer processors now have special circuits for specific things, such as...

(select all that apply)

• graphics operations

• decoding compressed video

• encrypting files

• doing math

How many instructions did the Intel 4004 have?

Data has to be transmitted between the CPU and RAM along a set of wires called a ______.

• train

• car

• bus

• track

A small piece of RAM located on the CPU - a cache - can only hold how much data?

Pick 2.

• kilobytes

• megabytes

• gigabytes

• terabytes

When data requested in RAM is already stored in the cache, it's called a ​ (a)   . If the data isn't in the cache, so you have to go to RAM, it's called a ​ (b)   . The cache can also be used like a ​ (c)   space, storing intermediate ​ (d)   when performing a longer or more complicated ​ (e)   .

• cache hit
• cache miss
• scratch
• values
• calculation

When the cache stores data that is different to what is stored in RAM, the cache has a special flag called a...

• dirty bit

• crazy bit

• clean bit

• revised bit

Instruction pipelining is explained with a washing machine example. ________ is shown as running both the washer and the dryer at the same time, saving time.

• parallelizing

• patterning

• post-preparing

• pre-rotating

To compensate for issues, ​ (a)   processors have to look ahead for data ​ (b)   , and if necessary, ​ (c)   their pipelines to avoid problems.

• pipelined
• dependencies
• stall
• reduce
• discrepancies