The two main factors that affect CPU speed are clock speed and what?

The two main factors that affect CPU speed are clock speed and what?

• A. Bus width
• B. Cache size
• C. Core count
• D. Memory type

Answer: (A)

Clock speed determines how many cycles per second the CPU can perform, while how much data can move between the CPU and memory each cycle—the data bus width—sets how much work can be done in those cycles. A wider bus carries more data per cycle, boosting overall speed because instructions and operands can be fetched and results written back more quickly. In this context, bus width is the best second factor to pair with clock speed to describe CPU speed. Cache size, core count, and memory type all influence performance, but they affect access latency, parallelism, or bandwidth in ways that don’t directly define the CPU’s speed in cycles per second, unlike the immediate throughput impact of bus width.

Clock speed determines how many cycles per second the CPU can perform, while how much data can move between the CPU and memory each cycle—the data bus width—sets how much work can be done in those cycles. A wider bus carries more data per cycle, boosting overall speed because instructions and operands can be fetched and results written back more quickly. In this context, bus width is the best second factor to pair with clock speed to describe CPU speed.

Cache size, core count, and memory type all influence performance, but they affect access latency, parallelism, or bandwidth in ways that don’t directly define the CPU’s speed in cycles per second, unlike the immediate throughput impact of bus width.