1MHz

[alex24]

Hertz (after Heinrich Hertz) are the units of frequency. In actuality, what fornowagain was saying when he said it's the inverse of the time interval is that the real (SI) units are s^-1. So frequency (specifically Hertz) is how many, let's say, repetitions (oscillations/cycles really), happen every second.

 

[FoxEye]

here to there and back to here is one oscillation.

here to there is half an oscillation

 

[Tom|Nbk]

Start from 1Hz, its just a cyclical event an oscillation that repeats once per second. The frequency is the inverse of the time interval. All the major Engineering and Physics disciplines deal with frequencies. Measurement depends on the type of signal. For a cpu clock its a square wave, use an oscilloscope.

Clever bloke tbh.

 

[reiyushin]

using your example then . . . . how many times would the light get switched on & off in one second on an Intel® Core™ i7 processor clocked to 4.0GHz . . . . and would Hyper-Threading affect this?

4,000,000,000 times per second per logical core...

32,000,000,000 :O

 

[Big.Wayne]

Thanks you reiyushin, can you express that figure in words please!

Also can someone else please double check reiyushin got the maths correct!

Thank you for the help!

 

[Locke]

x = 4M x 8 threads x 1 second, I would assume? so 32M

 

[VortX]

I had to do this for a bit of my coursework, have the stats here:

Computer operations are measured in Hz.

Hz = Hertz (1 cycle per second)
KHz = Kilohertz (1000 cycles per second)
MHz = Megahertz (1,000,000 cycles per second)
GHz = Gigahertz (1,000,000,000 cycles per second)

 

[Kribby2006]

Cool, hope you good at maths!

using your example then . . . . how many times would the light get switched on & off in one second on an Intel® Core™ i7 processor clocked to 4.0GHz . . . . and would Hyper-Threading affect this?

I think its 4 Billion times a second on each of the cores and with HT enabled that would be 4 billion on 8 simultaneously, im sure someone will correct me if wrong .

 

[Kribby2006]

Type this into Microsoft Sam and he'll say it for you "4,000,000,000" lol

 

[MikeHunt79]

1 Mhz = 1 million cycles per second.

 

[Rroff]

I'm not sure how you would count HT - as its not like having another full physical core... I think the CPU is still ticking over at 4x clockrate just able to execute extra commands in some cases when the CPU would otherwise be busy.

 

[Big.Wayne]

I have refered to fornowagain in the past as professor fornowagain so now you know why!

I am simple trying to understand a bit more about frequency, if I am understanding what is being said a processor cycle or oscillation is when that pink line has travelled up across the line and returned back down, is this correct? i.e that is 1 Hertz?

off topic:

It has been suggested to me by a qualified holistic nutritionalist that there may be health implications for someone like myself who spends a great deal of time surrounded by high speed computers, of course one may laugh at such a suggestion but I personally like to look into a situation and understand the variables before I scoff, sadly my strength is not mathmatics so I'm grateful to my forums friends for the help!

 

[Big.Wayne]

I'm not sure how you would count HT - as its not like having another full physical core...

Ok for the purposes of this example lets just say it's a full core . . . so eigth cores running at 4GHz basically . . . how many light bulbs flick on and off!

What is the figure?, I can't work it out myself and I need the answer expressed in words as I do not understand large numbers!

 

[gt_junkie]

Like Kribby said i believe it would be 4 billion per core so if you want to apply that to 8 cores then that's 8 x 4 billion which will be 32 billion.

gt

 

[MikeHunt79]

I have refered to fornowagain in the past as professor fornowagain so now you know why!



I am simple trying to understand a bit more about frequency, if I am understanding what is being said a processor cycle or oscillation is when that pink line has travelled up across the line and returned back down, is this correct? i.e that is 1 Hertz?

off topic:

It has been suggested to me by a qualified holistic nutritionalist that there may be health implications for someone like myself who spends a great deal of time surrounded by high speed computers, of course one may laugh at such a suggestion but I personally like to look into a situation and understand the variables before I scoff, sadly my strength is not mathmatics so I'm grateful to my forums friends for the help!

Usually a computer is in a big metal case which shields you from and high frequency radiation. Weather this high frequency radiation is harmful or not is another kettle of fish however...

I've been experimenting with some digital audio amplifiers, which use a variable switching frequency. These usually operate around 650Mhz, which is a little below 1Mhz, and when I use these without a case they can cause interference with an AM radio! Inductors are used to filter out the switching frequency from the speakers also, otherwise the interference would be a lot worse.

1 cycle = one complete wave going both above and below the line.

 

[Big.Wayne]

Like Kribby said i believe it would be 4 billion per core so if you want to apply that to 8 cores then that's 8 x 4 billion which will be 32 billion.

Wow!

I had no consciousness of that! . . . I kinda *slackly* thought the answer would have been 8 x 4000 = 32,000 or Thirty Two Thousand cycles a second . .

32 billion *events* in a single second is totally mind blowing!

 

[Zarf]

I think its 4 Billion times a second on each of the cores and with HT enabled that would be 4 billion on 8 simultaneously, im sure someone will correct me if wrong .

HT doesn't work like that, it's more about making sure the existing clock cycles are used efficiently and not being wasted whilst the processor has to fetch data from RAM to work on.

You've got 4 'rooms', each room has the light flipping on and off 4 billion times a second.
so 16 billion Hertz

 

[death_looms]

You would have freaked at the lasers I've worked with then! One of their pulses is ~1fs (femtosecond!), which is 10^-15 of a second, i.e. if they were all lined up, there would be a thousand million million per second, only 1,000 times or so less than the number of seconds that has passed in the universe!

Back to the real world, with processors so fast, why do things take so long! grrr

 

[Kribby2006]

HT doesn't work like that, it's more about making sure the existing clock cycles are used efficiently and not being wasted whilst the processor has to fetch data from RAM to work on.

You've got 4 'rooms', each room has the light flipping on and off 4 billion times a second.
so 16 billion Hertz

Sure I understand how HT works but as Wayne said a couple of posts ago take it that each was a separate core. In fact the frequency remains the same, its just you have 4 cores (or rooms ) at 4 Billion hz simultaneously

You know I would have had students if I had known my processor had 4 rooms going Only kidding btw v good analogy

 

[reiyushin]

I'm not sure how you would count HT - as its not like having another full physical core... I think the CPU is still ticking over at 4x clockrate just able to execute extra commands in some cases when the CPU would otherwise be busy.

Yea, wasn't totally sure on that either. I counted it because running 2 threads would require the transistors to compute once per thread (to logical 0 or logical 1) and so it effectively doubles operations the core must perform (hence the increased heat generation and power usage)

Like I said, not totally sure but it made sense to me.

32 billion *events* in a single second is totally mind blowing!

Truly is, and it makes you think a bit more about the massive effect overclocking has on a CPU...

Overclocking an i7 from stock to 4Ghz requires it to increases it's cycle output by 10,720,000,000. :O


**DISCLAIMER** I'm just up, still half asleep so what you've just read may or may not be BS!


(GF helped on the spelling so it should be correct )