CPU

A CPU or a Central Processing Unit or simply a processor, performs all logical, instructional and mathematical processing in a computer. It is often referred as the brain of the computer. It is housed in a microprocessor. A fast CPU helps in the overall speed of a computer. Generally larger machines have CPUs that require one or more printed circuit boards. There are mainly two components in a CPU namely the arithmetic logic unit (ALU) and the control unit (CU).

Intel’s Pentium line of single-core CPUs came into picture on 22nd March, 1993. The Pentium D was the first dual-core CPU. Its top-of-the-line variant, Pentium Extreme Edition was introduced in 2005. The Pentium 4 and Pentium D were replaced with the Intel Core 2 series of CPUs. The Celeron series of budget CPUs are also manufactured by Intel. The current AMD line-up of x86 CPUs comprises the Duron and Athlon series of CPUs. The successor to the Athlon line was Athlon 64, which belonged to the x86-64 family. AMD entered the dual-core market with the Athlon 64 X2 which comprised two Athlon 64 CPUs on a single chip; this was succeeded by the Athlon X2. The Athlon FX line is the top of the line variant for all the Athlon series of CPUs.