Explanation: - Gigahertz is a measurement of something happening X times per second.
- 4 gigahertz means that the thing is happening 4 billion times a second.
When we say that the processor runs at 4ghz we mean that the “main clock” of the processor is ticking 4 billion times per second.
- CPUs are digital circuits. They only do an action when the clock drives the circuit to do the action. Think of that as the RPM of a car. The faster the clock goes, the faster the actions happen.
- For performance, clock speed is important but it's not directly comparable between different CPU architectures. Clock speeds are comparable only in the same family of cpus that share an architecture.
Explanation by: Kirti
- 4 gigahertz means that the thing is happening 4 billion times a second.
When we say that the processor runs at 4ghz we mean that the “main clock” of the processor is ticking 4 billion times per second.
- CPUs are digital circuits. They only do an action when the clock drives the circuit to do the action. Think of that as the RPM of a car. The faster the clock goes, the faster the actions happen.
- For performance, clock speed is important but it's not directly comparable between different CPU architectures. Clock speeds are comparable only in the same family of cpus that share an architecture.