EXCEL ENGINEERING COLLEGE

(Autonomous)
B.E COMPUTER SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING
I Semester
20CS101 – COMPUTER HARDWARE AND NETWORKING
Regulations 2020
Question Bank with key
UNIT – I (MOTHERBOARD COMPONENTS AND MEMORY STORAGE DEVICES)

PART- A
Q.No Questions Marks CO BL
What is meant by hardware with examples?
Computer hardware is the collection of physical components that constitute a computer
system. Examples of hardware which is used in computer
1. Monitor
2. Keyboard
1 3. Computer Data Storage 2 CO1 R
4. Hard Disk Drive (HDD)
5. Graphic Card
6. Sound Card
7. Memory (RAM)
8. Motherboard
Define software.
 Software is a collection of instructions that enable the user to interact with a
2 2 CO1 R
computer, its hardware, or perform tasks.
 Software is developed by writing instructions in programming language.
Compare software and hardware.

S.No Hardware Software

1 Physical parts of the computer are called A set of instructions given to the
hardware computer is called software
3 2 We can see, touch and feel hardware We cannot touch and feel software 2 CO1 U
3 Hardware is constructed using physical Software is developed by
materials or components writing instructions in
programming language
4 Hardware cannot be transferred from Software can be transferred from
one place toanother electronically one placeto another electronically
through network through network
5 User cannot make new duplicate User can make many new
copies of thehardware duplicate copies of the software
Define Firmware.
 Firmware is a software program or set of instructions programmed on a hardware
4 device. 2 CO1 R
 It provides the necessary instructions for how the device communicates with the
othercomputer hardware.
 Infer the components of computer motherboard
o A CPU socket
o A power connector
o Slots for the system's main memory.
o heat sink.
5 o A second chip controls the input and output (I/O) functions. 2 CO1 U
o Several connectors, which provide the physical interface between input
and output devices and the motherboard.
o Slots for one or more hard drives to store files.
o A Read-Only Memory (ROM) chip
o A slot for a video or graphics card.
Name the types of computer memory
6  ROM – Read Only Memory 2 CO1 R
 RAM or Main Memory – Random access memory.
 Cache RAM
List down the advantages of SMPS
 SMPS stands for switch-mode power supply.
 SMPS is a power supply that uses a switching regulator to control and stabilize
7 2 CO1 R
the output voltage by switching the load current on and off.
 These power supplies offer a greater power conversion and reduce the overall
power loss.
What are the types of secondary storage devices?
 Floppy disk.
8  CD (compact Disk) 2 CO1 R
 DVD (Digital versatile disc)
 Hard disk.

Define bus.
 A collection of wires through which data is transmitted from one part
ofa computer to another.
9  All buses consist of two parts : an address bus and a data bus. 2 CO1 R
 The databus transfers actual data whereas the address bus transfers information
about where the data should go.
State the features of PCI.
 Support multiple market segments
10  It is faster than VL bus 2 CO1 R
 Scalable performance
 Data transfer rate is 132MBps.
 Relate PCI with AGP bus standards.

AGP PCI

AGP stands for Accelerated

Graphics Port. It is a graphic
PCI stands for Peripheral Component
hardware technology that got
Interconnect. The PCI bus architecture
introduced in 1996. It defines a high
has been fully standardized by the PCI
11 speed and point to point channel 2 CO1 U
Special Interest Group.
designed for Video cards and 3D
accelerators.

Solely for use with graphics cards General I/O interface bus

A dedicated one between the slot and

Sharing the PCI bus
the processor
Extend PCMCIA.
 The PCMCIA refers Personal Computer Memory Card International Association.
 It is an industry group organized in 1989 to promote standards for a
12 2 CO1 U
credit card- size memory or I/O device that would fit into a personal computer,
usually a notebook or laptop computer.
what is the need for Cache memory?
 Cache memory or memory cache is a fast and relatively small memory, not
visible to the software.
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 It is completely handled by the hardware, that stores the most recently used
main memory (MM) (or working memory) data.
 The function of the cache memory is to speed up the MM data access.
Write the advantages of HDD Partition.
 Hard drive to manage data in category wise.
14  Use the hard disk efficiently. 2 CO1 R
 Improving the efficiency of the system.
 Assign different permissions for different users.
State the connectors found in front panel of CPU
 Audio connector-To connect speaker.
15  Mic connector-To connect microphones. 2 CO1 R
 USB Connector-To connect USB drives.

Define chips.
 An integrated circuit or monolithic integrated circuit is a set of electronic circuits
16 2 CO1 R
on one small flat piece of semiconductor material, usually silicon.
 Large numbers of tiny MOSFETs integrate into a small chip.
Compare the characteristics of pentium processors in terms of number of cores,
speed, memory.
17 2 CO1 U
Model Core i3 Core i5 Core i7
Number of cores 2 4 4
 Hyper-threading Yes No Yes
Turbo boost No Yes Yes
K model No Yes Yes

Compare RAM and ROM

RAM ROM

RAM is a volatile memory which ROM is a non-volatile memory

could store the data as long as the which could retain the data even
power is supplied. when power is turned off.

18 Data stored in RAM can be Data stored in ROM can only be 2 CO1 U
retrieved and altered. read.

Used to store the data that has to be

currently processed by CPU It stores the instructions required
temporarily. during bootstrap of the computer.

It is a high-speed memory. It is much slower than the RAM.

Write short notes on DDR2 and DDR3

 DDR2 stands for Double Data Rate version 2 and DDR3 stands for Double Data
Rate version 3.
 DDR2 and DDR3 square measure enhancements on identical technology and
19 additional increase the amount of knowledge transfers per clock cycle. 2 CO1 R
 DDR2 RAM provides four knowledge transfers per cycle, whereas DDR3 will
increase the amount to eight. forward a base clock speed of 100Mhz, DDR RAM
can offer sixteen hundred MB/s of information measure, DDR2 provides thirty
two hundred MB/s, and DDR3 provides 6400 MB/s. a lot of is usually better.

Label the structure of PCI bus standard.

20 2 CO1 R
 PART- B
Q.N Questions Mark
CO BL
o s
1 Illustrate the motherboard components and its uses.
A motherboard is one of the most essential parts of a computer system. It is also called as
printed circuit board, system board, baseboard, planar board or logic board.
The large PCB of a motherboard may include 6 -14 layers of fiberglass, copper connecting
traces and copper planes for power and signal isolation.
Additional components can be added to a motherboard through its expansion slots.
Here are some of the typical parts:

 A CPU socket - the actual CPU is directly soldered onto the socket. Since high speed
CPUs generate a lot of heat, there are heat sinks and mounting points for fans right
next to the CPU socket.
 A power connector to distribute power to the CPU and other components.
 Slots for the system's main memory, typically in the form of DRAM chips.
 A chip forms an interface between the CPU, the main memory and other components.
 On many types of motherboards, this is referred to as the northbridge.
 This chip also contains a large heat sink.
 A second chip controls the input and output (I/O) functions. It is not connected
directly to the CPU but to the Northbridge.
 This I/O controller is referred to as the Southbridge.
 The Northbridge and Southbridge combined are referred to as the chipset.
 Several connectors, which provide the physical interface between input and output 16 CO1 U
devices and the motherboard. The Southbridge handles these connections.
 Slots for one or more hard drives to store files.
 The most common types of connections are Integrated Drive Electronics (IDE) and
Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA).
 A Read-Only Memory (ROM) chip, which contains the firmware, or startup
instructions for the computer system. This is also called the BIOS.
 A slot for a video or graphics card. There are a number of different types of slots,
including the Accelerated Graphics Port (AGP) and Peripheral Component
Interconnect Express (PCIe).
 Additional slots to connect hardware in the form of Peripheral Component
Interconnect(PCI)slots.
Component
 Component

Memory:
There are three types of motherboards memory as follows,
ROM – Read Only Memory
RAM or Main Memory – Random access memory.
Cache RAM
ROM – Read Only Memory
o Once data has been written onto a ROM chip, it cannot be removed and can
only be read.
o Unlike main memory (RAM), ROM retains its contents even when the
computer is turned off.
o ROM is referred to as being nonvolatile, whereas RAM is volatile.
RAM – Random Access memory
o High Speed memory and it can save the program and data temporarily.
o Memory chips are generally packaged into a small plastic or
ceramic dual inline packages (DIP).
o Then these are assembled into a memory module. The different memory
modules are SIMM, DIMM and RIMM.

Cache RAM
o This is a small fast memory lying between the CPU and RAM.
o During execution, theneeded data blocks are loaded form RAM to cache.
From cache it is transferred to CPU.

SMPS (Switched-Mode Power Supply)

o SMPS stands for switch-mode power supply.
o SMPS is a power supply that uses a switching regulator to control and
stabilize the output voltage by switching the load current on and off.
o These power supplies offer a greater power conversion and reduce the
overall power loss.
Drives
o A drive is a mechanical device that rotates very fast and had one or more
heads toread and write data on to recording medium permanently.
o There are different types of drives for different types of recording medium.
They are
Floppy drives to access floppy disk.
Optical drives to access optical disks such as CD, DVD etc..,
Hard disk drives to access hard disks.
Drives can be either within the computer system or external to the
computer system.

2 Explain the architecture of multicore processors with neat sketch.

A multi-core processor is an integrated circuit with two or more processors connected to it
for faster simultaneous processing of several tasks, reduced power consumption, and for
greater performance. Generally, it is made up of two or more processors that read and execute
program instructions.
A dual-core configuration is comparable to having several different processors installed on 16 CO1 U
the same computer, but the connection between them is faster because the two CPUs are
plugged into the same socket. Several instructions in parallel may be executed by individual
cores, boosting the speed of software built to make use of the architecture's unique features.
Architecture of Multicore Processor
A multi-core processor's design enables the communication between all available cores, and
they divide and assign all processing duties appropriately. The processed data from each core
is transmitted back to the computer's main board (Motherboard) via a single common
gateway once all of the processing operations have been finished. This method beats a single-
core CPU in terms of total performance.

Advantages of Multi-Core Processor

Multicore processors have a number of advantages (pros), including:
 Performance
 Reliability
 Software Interactions
 Multitasking
 Power Consumption
 Obsolescence Avoidance
 Isolation
Some other key points of benefits of Multicore Processor:
o When compared to single-core processors, a multicore processor has the potential of
doing more tasks.
o Low energy consumption when doing many activities at once.
o Data takes less time to reach its destination since both cores are integrated on a single
chip.
o With the use of a small circuit, the speed can be increased.
o Detecting infections with anti-virus software while playing a game is an example of
multitasking.
o With the use of low frequency, it can accomplish numerous tasks at the same time.
o In comparison to a single-core processor, it is capable of processing large amounts
of data.
Disadvantages of Multi-Core Processors
We will go through some of the limitations (drawbacks) of a multi-core processor, including:
 Application Speed
 Jitter
 Analysis
  Resource Sharing
 Software Interference
Some other key points of limitations of Multicore Processor:
o Although it contains several processors, it is not twice as fast as a simple processor.
o The task of managing is more complicated as compared to managing a single-core
CPU.
o The performance of a multi-core processor is entirely dependent on the tasks that
users execute.
o If other processors demand linear/sequential processing, multi-core processors take
longer to process.
o The battery drains more quickly.
o Its consumption of power is so high as compared to a simpler processor.
o Furthermore, in comparison to a single-core processor, it is more expensive.
Applications of multicore processors
Some applications of the multicore processor are as follows:
o Games with high graphics, such as Overwatch and Star Wars Battlefront, as well as
3D games.
o The multicore processor is more appropriate in Adobe Premiere, Adobe Photoshop,
iMovie, and other video editing software.
o Solid works with computer-aided design (CAD).
o High network traffic and database servers.
o Industrial robots, for example, are embedded systems.
3 Illustrate the memory and its types in detail.
Primary Memory
Introduction
 Primary memory is also known as primary storage or main memory.
 It is computer memory that is accessed directly by the CPU.
 This is used to store currently running programs and data temporarily. These are
stored as blocks.
 The two importantoperations in a memory are storing and retrieving. Retrieving data
from a large block takes long time than from a small block. So time of execution will
increase.
 To avoid this problem cache memory is used to speed up the memory retrieval
process.
 The CPU comes with relatively small amount cache compared with main memory. It 16 CO1 U
is also called as Static RAM(SRAM).

Cache Memory
 cache memory or memory cache is a fast and relatively small memory, not visible
to the software, that is completely handled by the hardware, that stores the most
recently used (MRU) main memory (MM) (or working memory) data.
 The function of the cache memory isto speed up the MM data access (performance
increasing) and most important, in multiprocessor systems with shared memory, to
reduce the system bus and MM traffic that is one of the major bottleneck of these
systems.
 Cache memory makes use of the fast technology SRAM (static random-
access memory cells), against a slower MM DRAM (dynamic random-access
 memory),connected directly to the processor(s).

Cache memory is fast and expensive. Traditionally, it is categorized as "levels" that describe
its closeness and accessibility to the microprocessor:

 Level 1 (L1) cache is extremely fast but relatively small, and is usually embedded in
theprocessor chip (CPU).
 Level 2 (L2) cache is often more capacious than L1; it may be located on the CPU or
on a separate chip or coprocessor with a high-speed alternative system bus
interconnecting the cache to the CPU, so as not to be slowed by traffic on the main
system bus.
 Level 3 (L3) cache is typically specialized memory that works to improve the
performance of L1 and L2. It can be significantly slower than L1 or L2, but is usually
double the speed of RAM. In the case of multicore processors, each core may have
its own dedicated L1 and L2 cache, but share a common L3 cache. When an
instruction is referenced in the L3 cache, it is typically elevated to a higher tier cache.
Main memory

 The main memory of the computer is also known as RAM, standing for Random
Access Memory.
 It is constructed from integrated circuits and needs to have electrical power in order
to maintain its information. When power is lost, the information is lost too.
 It can be directly accessed by the CPU.
 The access time to read or write any particular byte are independent of whereabouts
in the memory that byte is, and currently is approximately 50 nanoseconds (a
thousand millionth of a second).
 This is broadly comparable with the speed at which the CPU will needto access data.
 Main memory is expensive compared to external memory so it has limited capacity.
 Data transfer between CPU and memory takes place in a clock cycle called bus cycle.
The diagram gives the structure of memory.
The different types of memories are,
 DDR2
 DDR3
DDR2
 DDR (Double Data Rate) memory is the next generation SDRAM.
 DDR is synchronous with the system clock.
 The big difference between DDR and SDRAMmemory is that DDR reads data on
both the rising and falling edges of the clock signal.
 SDRAM only carries information on the rising edge of a signal.
 Basically, this allows the DDR module to transfer data twice as fast as SDRAM. The
important features are,
 It transfers data in raising and falling edge of a processor clock pulse. So speed of
memory access increase.
 It operates 1.8 v. It leads to lower operating temperature.
 Operation speed from 400MHZ to 1066 MHZ.
 Peak data transfer rate is 3200 / 4266 / 5333 / 6400 / 8533 Mbps.
 It consumes 217 MW power.
 Size of DDR2 varies from 256 MB to 4 GB.
DDR3
Short for double data rate three, DDR3 is a type of dynamic random-access
memory(DRAM) released in June of 2007 as the successor to DDR2.
DDR3 chips have bus clock speed of 400 MHz up to 1066 MHz, range in size
from 1 to 24 GB, and consume nearly 30% less power than their predecessors.
DDR3 RAM sticks for a desktop computer have 240 pins.
For a laptop computer, DDR3 RAM sticks have 204 pins. The important key
features are,

 It transfers data in raising and falling edge of a processor clock pulse. So speed of
memory access increase.
 Operating voltage is 1.5V. Higher performance at low power.
 Higher bandwidth performance, effectively up to 1600 MHz
 Size varies from 512MB to 8GB.
 Improved latencies as measured in nanoseconds.
 Enhanced low power features.

 RDRAM (Rambus DRAM) is a type of computer device active memory developed

and licensed by Rambus Inc.
 RDRAM competed with synchronous dynamic RAM (SDRAM)during the late 1990s
and early 2000s.
  A Direct Rambus channel includes a controller and one or more Direct RDRAMs
connected together via a common bus which can also connect to devices such as
micro- processors, digital signal processors (DSPs), graphics processors and ASICs.
 The controller islocated at one end, and the RDRAMS are distributed along the bus,
which is parallel terminated at the far end.
 The two-byte wide channel uses a small number of very high speed signals to carry
all address, data and control information at up to 800MHz.
 Important key features are,
o Bus speed of 133MHZ and above
o It uses pipeline memory architecture.
o Data transfer rate is 1.6 Gbps, 3.2 Gbps and 6.4Gbps.
o Operating speed is 100MHZ to 1000MHZ.
o Cost is very high.
One or more DRDRAM’s can be connected through a common bus with amemory controller.
4 Summarize the bus standards on PCT,AGP and PCMCIA.
 A collection of wires through which data is transmitted from one part of a
computer to another. All buses consist of two parts : an address bus and a data bus.
 The databus transfers actual data whereas the address bus transfers information about
where the data should go.
 The fastest bus is within CPU chip.
 This connects the processor and its primary cache.
 The next level is system bus or local bus.
 This connects processor with main memory and Level 2 cache.
 The system bus is 64 bits wide and its speed is 100MHz. The next level is I/O bus.
This connects the different I/O devices to the CPU.
Bus Structure

16 CO1 U

OVERVIEW AND FEATURES OF PCI

PCI refers to peripheral component interconnect. This is a special local bus developedby
intel.This is used to connect peripheral devices directly with memory.The important
features are
 Support multiple market segments
 It is faster than VL bus
 Backwards compatible
 Scalable performance
 Data transfer rate is 132MBps.
 Advanced features including QoS, power management, and data integrity.
 Its supports different types of add on cards both 32 bit and 64 bit.
OVERVIEW AND FEATURES OF PCMCIA BUS
 The PCMCIA refers Personal Computer Memory Card International Association.
 It is an industry group organized in 1989 to promote standards for a
credit card- size memory or I/O device that would fit into a personal computer,
usually a notebook or laptop computer.
 There are three types of PC cards,
 Type I PC Cards are typically used for memory devices such as RAM, Flash, OTP,
and SRAM cards
 Type II PC Cards are typically used for I/O devices such as data/fax modems, LANs,
and mass storage devices.
 Type III PC Cards are used for devices whose components are thicker, such as
rotating mass storage devices. These Extended cards allow the addition of
components that must remain outside the system for proper operation, such as
antennas for wireless applications.
OVERVIEW AND FEATURES OF AGP
 Accelerated Graphics Port, an interface specification developed by Intel Corporation.
 AGP is based on PCI, but is designed especially for the throughput demands of 3-D
graphics.

 Rather than using the PCI bus for graphics data. The features are,
 AGP introduces a dedicated point-to-point channel so that the graphics controller can
directly access main memory.
 The AGP channel is 32 bits wide and runs at 66 MHz.This translates into a
total bandwidth of 266 MBps, as opposed to the PCI bandwidth of 133 MBps.
 Sideband Addressing: Speeds up data transfers by sending command instructions in
a separate, parallel channel.
 AGP supports two optional faster modes, with throughputs of 533 MBps and 1.07
 GBps. In addition, AGP allows 3-D textures to be stored in main memory rather than
video memory.
 Throughput: Various levels of throughput are offered: 1X is 266 MBps, 2X is 533
MBps and 4X provides 1.07 GBps.
 Pipelining: Enables the graphics card to send several instructions together instead of
sending one at a time.
5 Explain the following
i)HDD partitioning & formatting

 Disk partitioning or disk slicing is the technique for creating one or more regions
on a hard disk or other secondary storage, so that an operating system can manage
information in each region separately.
 Each partition then appears in the operating system as a distinct "logical" disk
that uses part of the actual disk.
Advantages
 Hard drive to manage data in category wise.
 Portioning a hard drive is advantageous to the virus prevention and data
security.
 Use the hard disk efficiently.
 Improving the efficiency of the system.
 Assign different permissions for different users.
 Helpful to install multiple operating systems.

Formatting
 Disk formatting is the configuring process of a data storage media such as a hard
disk drive, floppy disk or flash drive for initial usage.
 Any existing files on the drive would be erased with disk formatting.
 Disk formatting is usually done before initial installation or before installation of
a new operating system. 8
 Disk formatting is also done if there is a requirement for additional storage in the CO1 U
8
computer.
There are two types of disk formatting,
 Low-Level formatting
 High – Level formatting
Low-Level formatting
 Low-level formatting is the process of marking out cylinders and tracks for a
blank hard disk, and then dividing tracks into multiple sectors.
 This process is often called the “real” formatting since it creates physical format
which defines where the data is saved.
 If users perform low-level formatting when data have been installed, all existing
files will be erased, and it is almost impossible to recover them.
High - Level formatting
 After a low-level formatting has been completed, users need to make high-level
formatting which makes it possible to save data and should be done on a partition.
 It is the process of writing a file system, cluster size, partition label, and so on for
a newly created partition or volume.
 This process does no harm to hard disk in general situations, so we suggest taking
such a format to fix a logically damaged partition or device, for example,
Windows asks to format a SD card.
ii)Ultra ATA and Serial ATA specifications
This was introduced i n the year 1997. it uses AT attachment programparallel interface
standard. So it can provide common interface for CDROM drive, tape backup drivers and
removable drives. The following are important ultra ATA’s These interface can control a
 maximum of 2 devices.
 Ultra ATA-4
 Ultra ATA-5
 Ultra ATA-6
principles of UATA and its types.
Ultra ATA
 In the second half of 1997 EIDE’s 16.6 MB/s limit was doubled to 33 MB/s by
the new Ultra ATA.
 As well as increasing the data transfer rate, Ultra ATA also improved data
integrity by using a data transfer error detection code called Cyclical Redundancy
Check (CRC). Important ultra ATA’s are,
 Ultra ATA-4
 Ultra ATA – 5
 Ultra ATA – 6
Ultra ATA 4
 The standard ATA-4 interface began to support Ultra DMA data transfer mode,
ATA-4was also called Ultra DMA 33 or ATA33.
 It was introduced in 1997.
 Features are Double Data Rate was first introduced on ATA interface, enforcing
interface to perform twice data transfer, one during ascending period and another
during descending period, within one clock period, which abruptly increased the
data transferrate from 16MB/s to 33MB/8.
 Ultra DMA 33 also introduced another new technology, CRC, which sends cyclic
redundancy code and checks the code when the opposite party is receiving. Only
when all checks are correct will the data be received and processed, casting strong
guarantee to the safety of high-speed data transfer.
Ultra ATA – 5
 It was introduced in 1999. Features are
 ATA-5, also called as "Ultra DMA 66" or "ATA66", is built on the base of Ultra
DMA 33 hard disk interface and adopts UDMA technology.
 Ultra DMA 66 has the receiving/sending rate reached 66.6 MB/s, which is two
times as fast as that of U-DMA/33. As working frequency increases, EMI
still arises onATA interface.
 Interface begins to use 80-cable with 40-pin. 40-pin.
 It reduce cost and all cables newly increased on 80-cable are earth cables
corresponding with original data lines which reduces electromagnetic
interference between neighboring signal wires.
 Signal Voltage is 5v.
Ultra ATA-6
 It was introduced in 2000. Features are
 ATA100 interface and data line are the same with ATA66 using 40-pin 80-core
datatransfer cable and with complete downward compatibility.
 It supports cyclic Redundancy check (CRC).
 All devices supporting ATA33 and ATA66 can be used on ATA100 interface.
ATA100 specification can easily deal with all current thorny problems of
ATA33 and ATA66.
 It allows hard disk external rate to reach 100MB/s, improving hard disk data
integrity and data transfer rate and considerably improving disk subsystem
performance of desktop system. The signal voltage is 3.3v
6 Outline the evolution of Pentium processors.
The Pentium family of processors originated from the 80486 microprocessor. The term 16 CO1 U
''Pentium processor'' refers to a family of microprocessors that share a common architecture
and instruction set. It runs at a clock frequency of either 60 or 66 MHz and has 3.1 million
transistors. Some of the features of Pentium architecture are:
 Complex Instruction Set Computer (CISC) architecture with Reduced Instruction Set
Computer (RISC) performance.
 64-Bit Bus
 Upward code compatibility.
 Pentium processor uses Superscalar architecture and hence can issue multiple
instructions per cycle.
 Multiple Instruction Issue (MII) capability.
 Pentium processor executes instructions in five stages. This staging, or pipelining,
allows the processor to overlap multiple instructions so that it takes less time to
execute two instructions in a row.
 The Pentium processor fetches the branch target instruction before it executes the
branch instruction.
 The Pentium processor has two separate 8-kilobyte (KB) caches on chip, one for
instructions and one for data. It allows the Pentium processor to fetch data and
instructions from the cache simultaneously.
 When data is modified, only the data in the cache is changed. Memory data is
changed only when the Pentium processor replaces the modified data in the cache
with a different set of data
 The Pentium processor has been optimized to run critical instructions in fewer clock
cycles than the 80486 processor.
Architecture
First, it's important to explain about architecture and codenames. Every year, Intel releases a
newer, faster range of processors. We're currently starting to see Devil's Canyon chips, a
refresh of last year's Haswell. Before that we had Ivy Bridge and Sandy Bridge. Generally
speaking a Core i3, i5 or i7 that has a newer architecture is faster than the older-architecture
processor that it replaces. You can tell the architecture by the model number, Devil's
Canyon and Haswell start with 4; Ivy Bridge with a 3; and Sandy Bridge with a 2.
The most important thing about different architectures is making sure that you have a
motherboard that supports the type of processor you're interested in. Processors, regardless
of whether they're a Core i3, i5 and i7, based on the same architecture are fundamentally the
same inside. The differences in performance come from which features are enabled or
disabled, the clock speed and how many cores each one has.
Model Core i3 Core i5 Core i7
Number of cores 2 4 4
Hyper-threading Yes No Yes
Turbo boost No Yes Yes
K model No Yes Yes
The feature table above shows you how the most popular processors line-up in terms of
features. The differences in Core i3, i5 and i7 are the same for Sandy Bridge Ivy Bridge,
Haswell and Devil's Canyon (a Haswell refresh). Note that there are exceptions (see below),
but you're mostly unlikely to encounter these odd models when buying a new CPU. Also,
mobile processors are completely different again, so we're focussing on desktop models
here only. What's important is what these different features mean, which we'll explain.
Cores
A core can be thought of as in individual processor. A dual-core processor, therefore has
two internal processors, a quad-core model has four. More cores are useful for multi-
tasking; for example, you can run two applications at the same time, each one having access
to its own dedicated processor.
More cores are also useful for multi-threaded applications, such as video editing. With these
types of applications they can use multiple cores to improve performance. Single-threaded
 applications can only use a single core leaving any others idle. Core i3 processors have two
cores, Core i5 CPUs have four and Core i7 models also have four. Some Core i7 Extreme
processors have six or eight cores. Generally speaking, we find that most applications can't
take full advantage of six or eight cores, so the performance boost from extra cores isn't as
great.
Hyper-Threading
Hyper-Threading is Intel's technology for creating two logical cores in each physical core.
In other words, to your operating system it appears as though your CPU has double the
number of cores than it really does.
In terms of performance, Hyper-Threading speeds up multi-tasking and multi-threaded
applications. It's not as fast or as efficient as extra 'real' cores, but it's an improvement over
a single Core. Core i3 and i7 processors have this technology, Core i5 processors do not.
Clock Speed
The faster the clock speed in MHz, the faster each core can run. This can create some
variances in performance. For example, a Core i3-4370 Haswell processor runs at 3.8GHz.
It would be faster running a single-threaded application, which can only use one core, than
a Core i5-4590, which only has a clock speed of 3.2GHz. However, running a multi-
threaded application, the Core i5 would most likely be quicker, as its four real cores are
better than the Core i3's two cores and Hyper-Threading.
Turbo Boost
Turbo Boost is Intel's technology for automatically overclocking a processor, boosting its
clock speed higher than the default setting. The CPU monitors its temperature and, when it's
running cool enough, will apply the overclock. Core i5 and i7 CPUs have this technology,
Core i3 models do not.
K Models
Any CPU that has a model ending with a K means that it the CPU is unlocked. This means
that you can use BIOS settings to up the clock speed of the chip, overclocking it yourself.
We've seen big improvements in performance this way - we pushed the Intel Core i7-4790K
chip to 4.7GHz!
Graphics chip
All Intel processors have graphics chips in them. Pre-Haswell, the GPUs weren't
particularly good for games, although they were fine for watching video. With Haswell,
came the Intel HD Graphics 4600 line, which is fine for a bit of light gaming; some cheaper
models (we'll show you how to check later) have HD Graphics 4400 chips, which are fine
for some older less-demanding games. Some of the more expensive chips have Intel Iris Pro
chips in them. They're slightly faster in games, but can cope with 4K video, making them
suitable for high-end video editing.

(Note:*Blooms Level (R – Remember, U – Understand, AP – Apply, AZ – Analyze, E – Evaluate, C –

Create)
PART A- Blooms Level : Remember, Understand, Apply
PART B- Blooms Level: Understand, Apply, Analyze, Evaluate(if possible)
Marks: 16 Marks, 8+8 Marks, 10+6 Marks)

Subject In charge Course Coordinator HOD IQAC

(Name & Signature) (Name & Signature)