These are not the only chips that Intel and AMD produce, there are others. Megahertz is the standard measurement in CPU speed. 1,000,000 cycles is equal to one megahertz (MHz).
A cycle is the smallest unit of processing a CPU can execute. Amazingly the first CPU used in a IBM PC was the 8088 which cycled at around 4.77mhz, or looking at in cycles per second 4,7700,00. Today computers run much much faster, 2.0mhz which is 2000mhz is considered about average speed of most computers in the market, and there also faster processor being sold.
For a long period of time speed was the main goal of both Intel and AMD, now the focus is on energy and efficiency of the processor. The more efficient a CPU is the better it is at performing simple operations or instructions.
The data path size or word size is the largest number of bits a CPU can process in an operation, ranging from 16 bits to 64bits. The external data path is the largest number of bits that can be transported into a CPU. The size of that path is relative to the system BUS.
Memory address is measure of range of addresses that physical memory is assigned to. Physical memory is limited to the amount of address that can be assigned to a CPU. One megabyte is smallest number of memory addresses a CPU can use, whereas a byte of memory is a single address.
The L1 cache refers to the amount of memory or instructions for data that is built into the chip. Memory addresses is determined by the number of traces that are on the system board which refers to the data path which is determined by width of the system board data path, thus determining the number of parallel traces in the bus data path.
Ultimately word size and data path or no longer seen as distinguishing qualities. Clock speed the system BUS and the L1 cache and the CPU's ability to handle graphics are a better measure of the chips functionality and performance.
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