1 00:00:04,360 --> 00:00:12,440 Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there, 2 00:00:12,440 --> 00:00:15,480 Speaker 1: and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. 3 00:00:15,560 --> 00:00:19,120 Speaker 1: I'm an executive producer with iHeartRadio. And how the tech 4 00:00:19,200 --> 00:00:23,560 Speaker 1: are you? It's time for a tech Stuff Tidbits episode 5 00:00:23,920 --> 00:00:26,599 Speaker 1: and I thought today we could talk a little bit 6 00:00:26,680 --> 00:00:30,920 Speaker 1: about CPUs and some of the stuff around them. So 7 00:00:30,960 --> 00:00:34,000 Speaker 1: if you are someone who is you know, familiar with 8 00:00:34,040 --> 00:00:36,800 Speaker 1: the term, but you don't know a whole lot about CPUs, 9 00:00:37,400 --> 00:00:38,960 Speaker 1: this is kind of for you. For those of you 10 00:00:39,000 --> 00:00:42,720 Speaker 1: all who have been over clocking your CPUs for years, 11 00:00:42,720 --> 00:00:45,839 Speaker 1: this is going to be beyond basic. So that's just 12 00:00:45,880 --> 00:00:47,360 Speaker 1: a warning for you. But if you want to come 13 00:00:47,360 --> 00:00:50,760 Speaker 1: along for the ride, please do. I like your company. Okay, 14 00:00:51,320 --> 00:00:54,800 Speaker 1: So CPU, what the heck is that? It is a 15 00:00:54,880 --> 00:00:59,040 Speaker 1: central processing unit. You can think of this as the 16 00:00:59,080 --> 00:01:04,200 Speaker 1: brains of your computer. This is the micro chip that 17 00:01:04,280 --> 00:01:08,800 Speaker 1: will accept data. It'll actually send out and request data 18 00:01:08,880 --> 00:01:12,759 Speaker 1: from memory for example, to be able to run operations 19 00:01:12,920 --> 00:01:17,440 Speaker 1: on that data and create output. So you get input 20 00:01:17,520 --> 00:01:20,640 Speaker 1: coming in, you get operations going on, like you know, 21 00:01:20,720 --> 00:01:24,440 Speaker 1: mathematical operations, and then you get results coming out. Those 22 00:01:24,440 --> 00:01:26,840 Speaker 1: results do stuff in the computer. It could be all 23 00:01:26,840 --> 00:01:30,080 Speaker 1: sorts of things like it's it's literally all the things 24 00:01:30,120 --> 00:01:32,200 Speaker 1: that need to happen. And if you think of the 25 00:01:32,240 --> 00:01:35,200 Speaker 1: CPU kind of like a brain, it's not a one 26 00:01:35,240 --> 00:01:39,440 Speaker 1: to one, don't take it like that, but it does 27 00:01:39,480 --> 00:01:43,480 Speaker 1: a similar function. How everything our bodies are doing. Everything 28 00:01:43,520 --> 00:01:47,000 Speaker 1: we are doing is ultimately coming as a result of 29 00:01:47,280 --> 00:01:51,960 Speaker 1: brain activity. That you know, if you if you are 30 00:01:52,000 --> 00:01:55,800 Speaker 1: thinking about it, then that's obviously active. You can understand that. 31 00:01:55,880 --> 00:01:58,720 Speaker 1: But if it's stuff like you know, things that you're 32 00:01:58,720 --> 00:02:02,000 Speaker 1: doing unconsciously, like linking, Like you're not thinking about blinking, 33 00:02:02,000 --> 00:02:05,760 Speaker 1: are you? Please? Please don't think about blinking, because I 34 00:02:05,800 --> 00:02:08,680 Speaker 1: don't want to be responsible for that. You're doing it. Now, 35 00:02:08,680 --> 00:02:11,639 Speaker 1: you're going to think every time you blink for a while, 36 00:02:11,800 --> 00:02:14,160 Speaker 1: and then you'll stop, you'll forget about it for a bit, 37 00:02:14,440 --> 00:02:15,919 Speaker 1: then it'll come back to you later in the day 38 00:02:15,919 --> 00:02:18,800 Speaker 1: and you'll start thinking about blinking again, and I'm that's 39 00:02:18,800 --> 00:02:24,040 Speaker 1: all my fault anyway. CPUs are able to run processes 40 00:02:24,320 --> 00:02:27,200 Speaker 1: on data. That's their main purpose. Now. They come in 41 00:02:27,280 --> 00:02:31,120 Speaker 1: a couple of different varieties and from a couple of 42 00:02:31,120 --> 00:02:36,040 Speaker 1: different manufacturers. The two major manufacturers of CPUs really the 43 00:02:36,080 --> 00:02:38,600 Speaker 1: only two worth talking about when you get down to it, 44 00:02:38,639 --> 00:02:43,480 Speaker 1: because the entire industry has centered around them. Are Intel 45 00:02:44,080 --> 00:02:51,920 Speaker 1: and AMD, and these two companies dominate the CPU industry, 46 00:02:52,280 --> 00:02:57,160 Speaker 1: and in fact the CPUs they make are incompatible with 47 00:02:57,160 --> 00:03:01,519 Speaker 1: one another. Right, you can't swap an Intel chip out 48 00:03:01,560 --> 00:03:05,200 Speaker 1: for an AMD chip on your computer because an Intel 49 00:03:05,360 --> 00:03:08,840 Speaker 1: chip won't fit in an AMD slot and vice versa. 50 00:03:08,960 --> 00:03:13,600 Speaker 1: So this also gives me a chance to mention motherboards, 51 00:03:13,760 --> 00:03:18,720 Speaker 1: which I'll just do briefly. Motherboards are giant circuit boards. Essentially, 52 00:03:18,840 --> 00:03:21,760 Speaker 1: this is like your peripheral nervous system in a way. 53 00:03:21,800 --> 00:03:24,640 Speaker 1: This is what connects all the components to each other 54 00:03:24,760 --> 00:03:28,239 Speaker 1: so that data can actually pass from one thing to 55 00:03:28,280 --> 00:03:32,120 Speaker 1: another and your computer it can work. So you can 56 00:03:32,200 --> 00:03:35,760 Speaker 1: think of this a sort of the vertebrae attaches everything together, 57 00:03:36,520 --> 00:03:40,840 Speaker 1: and motherboards work with specific chips. So if you are 58 00:03:40,960 --> 00:03:44,400 Speaker 1: ever going to build your own computer, then one thing 59 00:03:44,440 --> 00:03:48,040 Speaker 1: you absolutely must make certain you do is to confirm 60 00:03:48,160 --> 00:03:52,440 Speaker 1: that the processor you're interested in will work with the 61 00:03:52,640 --> 00:03:56,720 Speaker 1: mother board you're interested in. If you're getting an AMD motherboard, 62 00:03:56,760 --> 00:03:59,520 Speaker 1: like an AMD compatible motherboard, and you're getting an Intel chip, 63 00:04:00,040 --> 00:04:02,360 Speaker 1: you're going to rapidly find out that you've you're gonna 64 00:04:02,400 --> 00:04:05,360 Speaker 1: have to return something because either you're gonna need to 65 00:04:05,400 --> 00:04:08,280 Speaker 1: get an AMD processor or you're going to get another motherboard. 66 00:04:08,680 --> 00:04:11,520 Speaker 1: But motherboards are where you plug everything else in, right, 67 00:04:11,640 --> 00:04:13,760 Speaker 1: Like if you've got a graphics processing unit, which we'll 68 00:04:13,760 --> 00:04:16,360 Speaker 1: talk about in a second, or you know you've got 69 00:04:16,440 --> 00:04:18,719 Speaker 1: various components that you want to add to it. Maybe 70 00:04:18,720 --> 00:04:21,400 Speaker 1: you've got other expansion slots that you want to fill 71 00:04:21,480 --> 00:04:24,200 Speaker 1: up with various cards of some sort, maybe a capture 72 00:04:24,240 --> 00:04:27,880 Speaker 1: card something like that, that goes on to the motherboard, 73 00:04:28,080 --> 00:04:30,840 Speaker 1: which again acts as kind of like the connectivity for 74 00:04:30,920 --> 00:04:34,719 Speaker 1: all the different elements in your PC. Getting back to CPUs, 75 00:04:34,720 --> 00:04:36,080 Speaker 1: because there are a couple of other things I want 76 00:04:36,080 --> 00:04:37,719 Speaker 1: to talk about. I did mention that there are a 77 00:04:37,720 --> 00:04:42,360 Speaker 1: couple of different types of CPU. Actually there's lots if 78 00:04:42,360 --> 00:04:45,400 Speaker 1: you want to boil down to it. But really one 79 00:04:45,440 --> 00:04:48,280 Speaker 1: thing we can talk about our cores, like a single 80 00:04:48,320 --> 00:04:53,279 Speaker 1: core CPU versus a multi core CPU. For many years, 81 00:04:53,320 --> 00:04:57,120 Speaker 1: single core was pretty much all you had, and you 82 00:04:57,120 --> 00:05:02,960 Speaker 1: could increase the speed of how your CPU could process 83 00:05:03,000 --> 00:05:07,240 Speaker 1: information by getting CPUs that had more and more components 84 00:05:07,240 --> 00:05:09,720 Speaker 1: crammed onto them. But that was pretty much the only 85 00:05:09,760 --> 00:05:12,479 Speaker 1: way you could speed things up. Then we get to 86 00:05:12,800 --> 00:05:18,120 Speaker 1: multi core CPU design, and as the name suggests, these 87 00:05:18,160 --> 00:05:23,760 Speaker 1: CPUs actually consists of kind of like miniature versions of 88 00:05:23,960 --> 00:05:28,640 Speaker 1: CPUs all clumped together in a way. So think of 89 00:05:28,640 --> 00:05:32,039 Speaker 1: it instead of it being one big brain, something like 90 00:05:32,120 --> 00:05:36,159 Speaker 1: maybe for smaller brains or AID or whatever. However many 91 00:05:36,200 --> 00:05:42,320 Speaker 1: cores there are. Multi core CPUs are effective when they're 92 00:05:42,360 --> 00:05:46,560 Speaker 1: dealing with information that can be broken down into parallel 93 00:05:46,640 --> 00:05:51,919 Speaker 1: lines of processing because you can assign different cores by you. 94 00:05:52,000 --> 00:05:54,160 Speaker 1: I mean, this is all happening by the computer. You're 95 00:05:54,200 --> 00:05:57,480 Speaker 1: not taking an active role, but the computer can assign 96 00:05:57,920 --> 00:06:02,000 Speaker 1: different lines of processing to specif it cores, and that way, 97 00:06:02,040 --> 00:06:05,159 Speaker 1: each core is focusing on part of the overall operation, 98 00:06:05,960 --> 00:06:09,279 Speaker 1: and collectively they can solve it faster. So if you've 99 00:06:09,279 --> 00:06:11,200 Speaker 1: listened to tex staff for a very long time, you 100 00:06:11,320 --> 00:06:13,720 Speaker 1: know the analogy I'm about to give because it's one 101 00:06:13,760 --> 00:06:16,800 Speaker 1: of my favorite go toos. Imagine that it's a class 102 00:06:16,839 --> 00:06:20,239 Speaker 1: of math students and everyone in the class is great 103 00:06:20,240 --> 00:06:23,839 Speaker 1: at math, but there's also one absolute genius at math 104 00:06:23,880 --> 00:06:30,680 Speaker 1: who just consistently finishes tests fast and is perfect, and 105 00:06:30,760 --> 00:06:34,280 Speaker 1: she's just the best. Everybody else is great, and they 106 00:06:34,320 --> 00:06:36,360 Speaker 1: also get very good grades, but it takes them more 107 00:06:36,400 --> 00:06:39,560 Speaker 1: time to complete, say a math test. And so as 108 00:06:39,800 --> 00:06:43,760 Speaker 1: a fun experiment, the teacher assigns a pop quiz to 109 00:06:43,800 --> 00:06:47,880 Speaker 1: the class, and the genius student she has all the 110 00:06:48,480 --> 00:06:51,080 Speaker 1: problems on her sheet. She has to answer all of them. 111 00:06:51,120 --> 00:06:53,680 Speaker 1: Let's say that there's six of them, and there are 112 00:06:53,720 --> 00:06:56,600 Speaker 1: six other students. They're really smart ones, but they're not 113 00:06:56,720 --> 00:07:00,359 Speaker 1: genius level. They're each given one of the problem. So 114 00:07:00,440 --> 00:07:03,000 Speaker 1: student one gets problem one, student two gets problem two, 115 00:07:03,080 --> 00:07:06,440 Speaker 1: and so on. They just have to solve their own problem. 116 00:07:06,480 --> 00:07:09,080 Speaker 1: That's it, and then they can turn in their test. 117 00:07:09,600 --> 00:07:12,080 Speaker 1: So the question is who finishes the test first. Well, 118 00:07:12,120 --> 00:07:14,600 Speaker 1: in this approach, it's probably going to be the six students, right, 119 00:07:14,640 --> 00:07:18,400 Speaker 1: because they're each focusing on just one problem. Whereas the genius, 120 00:07:18,400 --> 00:07:21,600 Speaker 1: even though she's faster than any individual student, she has 121 00:07:21,640 --> 00:07:25,120 Speaker 1: to complete all six and she can't do it simultaneously. 122 00:07:25,160 --> 00:07:28,600 Speaker 1: She has to go sequentially. Well, that would be a 123 00:07:28,640 --> 00:07:33,080 Speaker 1: case where the six students would outperform the single one, 124 00:07:33,080 --> 00:07:35,920 Speaker 1: where you could say a multi core processor could handle 125 00:07:36,040 --> 00:07:40,320 Speaker 1: that sort of computational problem more effectively than a single core. 126 00:07:40,880 --> 00:07:44,880 Speaker 1: But that's not how all computer problems come, right, Like 127 00:07:45,000 --> 00:07:48,440 Speaker 1: what if the test worked in such a way where 128 00:07:48,800 --> 00:07:51,920 Speaker 1: the only way you could tackle problem number two is 129 00:07:51,920 --> 00:07:54,679 Speaker 1: if you had the solution to problem number one first, 130 00:07:55,320 --> 00:07:57,560 Speaker 1: then you could tackle problem number two. Same thing with 131 00:07:57,640 --> 00:07:59,240 Speaker 1: problem number three. You have to wait until you have 132 00:07:59,280 --> 00:08:01,920 Speaker 1: the solution to problem number two. Well, then the six 133 00:08:02,000 --> 00:08:05,800 Speaker 1: students are going to lose because we've already established the genius. 134 00:08:05,880 --> 00:08:09,760 Speaker 1: She can finish her test much faster, and meanwhile, student 135 00:08:09,840 --> 00:08:11,880 Speaker 1: number two has to wait until student number one is 136 00:08:11,920 --> 00:08:15,760 Speaker 1: finished before they can tackle problem number two. Right, So, 137 00:08:16,400 --> 00:08:21,000 Speaker 1: depending on the computational problem, multicore may or may not 138 00:08:21,120 --> 00:08:24,040 Speaker 1: be better than a single core. For a lot of 139 00:08:24,320 --> 00:08:28,560 Speaker 1: gaming applications, multi coore can work pretty well, and also 140 00:08:29,320 --> 00:08:33,080 Speaker 1: in a lot of graphics processing units or GPUs, which, 141 00:08:33,120 --> 00:08:37,319 Speaker 1: as the name suggests, are all about handling the processing 142 00:08:37,640 --> 00:08:44,120 Speaker 1: to generate graphics. Those are often parallel processing machines. Right, 143 00:08:44,160 --> 00:08:48,120 Speaker 1: that's just like a chip designed to do parallel processing 144 00:08:48,760 --> 00:08:53,600 Speaker 1: and coincidentally, or not even so coincidentally, but because of that, 145 00:08:54,320 --> 00:09:00,559 Speaker 1: they also were incredibly important for mining of certain crypto currencies, 146 00:09:00,840 --> 00:09:03,880 Speaker 1: initially stuff like bitcoin, but then bitcoin's value got to 147 00:09:03,920 --> 00:09:07,080 Speaker 1: a point where it no longer made financial sense to 148 00:09:07,120 --> 00:09:12,360 Speaker 1: go after graphics processing cards in order to mine bitcoin, 149 00:09:12,600 --> 00:09:15,840 Speaker 1: because you just you would fall behind. People were going 150 00:09:15,880 --> 00:09:21,000 Speaker 1: for purpose built machines in order to mind bitcoin more effectively. 151 00:09:21,000 --> 00:09:23,920 Speaker 1: But then ethereum before it moved on to being a 152 00:09:23,920 --> 00:09:27,400 Speaker 1: proof of steak versus proof of work. That was the 153 00:09:27,440 --> 00:09:32,080 Speaker 1: cryptocurrency that drove people to scoop up as many graphics 154 00:09:32,080 --> 00:09:34,520 Speaker 1: processing unit cards as they possibly could in order to 155 00:09:34,559 --> 00:09:39,880 Speaker 1: create an entire network of computers using these to mine cryptocurrency, 156 00:09:40,160 --> 00:09:46,760 Speaker 1: because like graphics processing, cryptocurrency mining really would benefit from 157 00:09:46,800 --> 00:09:51,600 Speaker 1: parallel processing, which is what multicore processors can do. Okay, 158 00:09:52,000 --> 00:09:55,280 Speaker 1: so that's your basic division, single core and multicore. There's 159 00:09:55,320 --> 00:09:57,040 Speaker 1: some other stuff we need to talk about. One of 160 00:09:57,080 --> 00:10:01,240 Speaker 1: the things is clock speed. So this can seem a 161 00:10:01,280 --> 00:10:05,080 Speaker 1: little confusing at first because you're thinking, well, our experience 162 00:10:05,160 --> 00:10:08,000 Speaker 1: with clocks is that these are devices meant to keep time, 163 00:10:08,040 --> 00:10:11,520 Speaker 1: and therefore the speed of clocks should be uniform, it 164 00:10:11,520 --> 00:10:14,520 Speaker 1: should be universal, right, because you just want to keep time. 165 00:10:15,200 --> 00:10:18,520 Speaker 1: That's not what we're really talking about here. Clock speed 166 00:10:18,520 --> 00:10:22,800 Speaker 1: with CPUs or even GPUs, it's the rate at which 167 00:10:23,679 --> 00:10:28,400 Speaker 1: the processor is able to perform calculations, and we typically 168 00:10:28,480 --> 00:10:31,880 Speaker 1: see this measured these days, especially in gigga hurts. Like 169 00:10:31,920 --> 00:10:35,599 Speaker 1: when I remember from my days of working with computers 170 00:10:35,600 --> 00:10:38,680 Speaker 1: when I was a kid, kill hurts and mega hurts 171 00:10:38,720 --> 00:10:40,960 Speaker 1: were like that was the thing. But gigga hurts is 172 00:10:41,000 --> 00:10:46,920 Speaker 1: definitely where we're at now, and hurts refers to a 173 00:10:48,000 --> 00:10:52,120 Speaker 1: repetitive task in a given amount of time, like how 174 00:10:52,120 --> 00:10:55,520 Speaker 1: many times are you doing something within a given amount 175 00:10:55,520 --> 00:10:59,000 Speaker 1: of time like a second, So one hurts would be 176 00:10:59,160 --> 00:11:01,679 Speaker 1: one repetition per second. When you're talking about gigga hurts, 177 00:11:01,679 --> 00:11:05,480 Speaker 1: you're talking about a billion per second. So when you're 178 00:11:05,520 --> 00:11:09,200 Speaker 1: talking about a clock speed of a processor and it's 179 00:11:09,360 --> 00:11:11,640 Speaker 1: three point five gigga hurts, that means it's three point 180 00:11:11,640 --> 00:11:17,520 Speaker 1: five billion operations per second. I'm going to explain that 181 00:11:17,559 --> 00:11:21,240 Speaker 1: a little bit further because that's kind of a very 182 00:11:21,360 --> 00:11:25,440 Speaker 1: high level version of what clock speed is. But before 183 00:11:25,440 --> 00:11:38,360 Speaker 1: we get to that, let's take a quick break. Okay, 184 00:11:38,720 --> 00:11:42,800 Speaker 1: So I mentioned before that clock speed reference is essentially 185 00:11:42,880 --> 00:11:48,160 Speaker 1: the number of calculations or operations that a CPU can 186 00:11:48,280 --> 00:11:51,040 Speaker 1: make in a given amount of time. In this case 187 00:11:51,080 --> 00:11:56,560 Speaker 1: a second, operations can be actually multi step, so really 188 00:11:56,559 --> 00:11:59,520 Speaker 1: you should think of this as steps that the processor 189 00:11:59,600 --> 00:12:03,160 Speaker 1: can take per second. With some operations requiring only a 190 00:12:03,160 --> 00:12:06,520 Speaker 1: single step, in some perhaps requiring multiple steps. So it 191 00:12:06,559 --> 00:12:10,120 Speaker 1: gets a little more fuzzy when we start talking about operations. 192 00:12:10,160 --> 00:12:13,640 Speaker 1: But generally speaking, the higher the clock speed, the faster 193 00:12:13,800 --> 00:12:18,800 Speaker 1: that processor is at you know, processing information. It can 194 00:12:18,840 --> 00:12:21,800 Speaker 1: process more information in the same amount of time, which 195 00:12:22,200 --> 00:12:26,120 Speaker 1: we end up saying means the processor is faster even 196 00:12:26,120 --> 00:12:29,000 Speaker 1: though you know most of the time it's not moving anywhere, 197 00:12:29,600 --> 00:12:32,040 Speaker 1: at least not if your computer has been set up properly. 198 00:12:32,600 --> 00:12:37,040 Speaker 1: So this also brings us to the concept of overclocking. 199 00:12:37,840 --> 00:12:45,240 Speaker 1: Overclocking is when you end up pushing past the rated 200 00:12:45,480 --> 00:12:51,080 Speaker 1: specifications of a piece of hardware in order to get 201 00:12:51,120 --> 00:12:54,360 Speaker 1: more out of it. So, in other words, when you 202 00:12:54,400 --> 00:12:57,600 Speaker 1: get a processor, it essentially is, you know, it's telling 203 00:12:57,640 --> 00:13:02,040 Speaker 1: you what clock speed it's been set at. That speed 204 00:13:02,480 --> 00:13:08,520 Speaker 1: has been determined by the manufacturer. Usually you can actually 205 00:13:08,559 --> 00:13:11,480 Speaker 1: push a processor to go beyond that speed. You have 206 00:13:11,520 --> 00:13:13,360 Speaker 1: to go into some settings to be able to do this. 207 00:13:13,360 --> 00:13:16,280 Speaker 1: It gets very technical. I'll probably do an episode just 208 00:13:16,360 --> 00:13:19,320 Speaker 1: about that at some point, but for now we'll set 209 00:13:19,360 --> 00:13:21,560 Speaker 1: it aside. The point being is you can go in 210 00:13:21,600 --> 00:13:26,600 Speaker 1: there and essentially remove the regulator that would otherwise keep 211 00:13:26,679 --> 00:13:28,800 Speaker 1: you at that top speed and not let you go 212 00:13:28,880 --> 00:13:31,679 Speaker 1: past it. You can take that down and allow your 213 00:13:31,800 --> 00:13:35,520 Speaker 1: processor to work even harder. This is gonna do a 214 00:13:35,559 --> 00:13:37,560 Speaker 1: couple of things. It's going to generate a lot more heat, 215 00:13:37,960 --> 00:13:39,520 Speaker 1: so you have to have a way of dealing with 216 00:13:39,600 --> 00:13:43,760 Speaker 1: that heat otherwise you run the risk of damaging the processor. 217 00:13:43,920 --> 00:13:46,840 Speaker 1: And then sure it will run super fast for a while, 218 00:13:47,160 --> 00:13:50,800 Speaker 1: but then ultimately it's going to break, it's going to 219 00:13:50,840 --> 00:13:53,760 Speaker 1: wear out, and then you'll have to replace it. So 220 00:13:53,800 --> 00:13:55,920 Speaker 1: you really need to have a way of carrying heat 221 00:13:55,920 --> 00:13:59,640 Speaker 1: away to allow this to happen. And then like there's 222 00:13:59,679 --> 00:14:01,760 Speaker 1: certain limits you just are not going to get past 223 00:14:02,960 --> 00:14:06,680 Speaker 1: without damaging the processor. So overclocking is a thing that 224 00:14:06,880 --> 00:14:10,320 Speaker 1: is possible, and a lot of people do it, and 225 00:14:10,480 --> 00:14:12,520 Speaker 1: a lot of gamers do it in particular because it 226 00:14:12,559 --> 00:14:15,120 Speaker 1: allows them to get even more performance out of their machines. 227 00:14:15,640 --> 00:14:17,480 Speaker 1: But you need to know what you're doing so that 228 00:14:17,559 --> 00:14:20,680 Speaker 1: you do it in a way that's not gonna wreck 229 00:14:20,760 --> 00:14:23,280 Speaker 1: your computer rail of the gate and have to you'll 230 00:14:23,320 --> 00:14:25,600 Speaker 1: have to go in and like maybe replace a CPU, 231 00:14:25,680 --> 00:14:28,840 Speaker 1: or if you're really unlucky, you might have to replace 232 00:14:28,880 --> 00:14:32,560 Speaker 1: a whole motherboard along with the CPU. So that's something 233 00:14:32,560 --> 00:14:36,040 Speaker 1: to keep in mind. But yeah, overclocking is a way 234 00:14:36,080 --> 00:14:38,560 Speaker 1: to get your computer to do more than what the 235 00:14:38,640 --> 00:14:42,120 Speaker 1: manufacturer intended. Now, in some cases, in fact, this has 236 00:14:42,120 --> 00:14:46,560 Speaker 1: happened in the past. Manufacturers have made processors like the 237 00:14:46,640 --> 00:14:51,640 Speaker 1: same processor chip and specifically gone in and set different 238 00:14:51,760 --> 00:14:56,840 Speaker 1: versions of that chip with different limitations of its clock speed. So, 239 00:14:57,000 --> 00:15:01,520 Speaker 1: in other words, there's an artificial limit, like an artificial ceiling, 240 00:15:01,720 --> 00:15:05,600 Speaker 1: to how fast that processor can work. You could go 241 00:15:05,640 --> 00:15:08,720 Speaker 1: out and buy one version of the CPU that's maybe 242 00:15:09,080 --> 00:15:13,560 Speaker 1: limited to one point five giga hurts, and then you 243 00:15:13,600 --> 00:15:15,560 Speaker 1: go and you get to another one it's one point 244 00:15:15,600 --> 00:15:17,680 Speaker 1: seven five, and then a third one and it's two 245 00:15:17,800 --> 00:15:21,160 Speaker 1: point zero. And it's possible that all three of those 246 00:15:21,200 --> 00:15:26,080 Speaker 1: processors are from an architecture standpoint identical. The only thing 247 00:15:26,120 --> 00:15:28,520 Speaker 1: that's different is that the manufacturer has put a different 248 00:15:28,520 --> 00:15:30,640 Speaker 1: limit in there and set a different price tag on 249 00:15:30,720 --> 00:15:35,320 Speaker 1: each of those chips, and it makes it really cheap 250 00:15:35,400 --> 00:15:39,800 Speaker 1: to produce them, and you're just artificially limiting what the 251 00:15:40,080 --> 00:15:43,560 Speaker 1: hardware can do. So there are ways of getting past that. 252 00:15:43,760 --> 00:15:46,880 Speaker 1: And I know that there are a lot of computer 253 00:15:47,000 --> 00:15:49,360 Speaker 1: enthusiasts out there and when they find out that kind 254 00:15:49,360 --> 00:15:52,120 Speaker 1: of thing. They get really upset, which is understandable because 255 00:15:52,800 --> 00:15:56,680 Speaker 1: you're thinking to yourself, if this device is capable of 256 00:15:56,760 --> 00:16:00,240 Speaker 1: performing at a higher level that's still within the rate 257 00:16:00,320 --> 00:16:03,400 Speaker 1: limit of the manufacturer for the you know, whatever the 258 00:16:03,440 --> 00:16:08,600 Speaker 1: top of the line is, then it's so unfair that's 259 00:16:08,640 --> 00:16:12,520 Speaker 1: being sold to me with brakes put on so it 260 00:16:12,640 --> 00:16:14,880 Speaker 1: cannot reach that level. I'm going to remove the brakes. 261 00:16:15,760 --> 00:16:18,200 Speaker 1: That has happened in the past. It's not something that 262 00:16:18,240 --> 00:16:21,360 Speaker 1: necessarily happens frequently, but it does happen. But then there 263 00:16:21,360 --> 00:16:23,520 Speaker 1: are also cases where someone just goes out and they 264 00:16:23,560 --> 00:16:26,240 Speaker 1: buy a really fast CPU and they say, I want 265 00:16:26,240 --> 00:16:29,920 Speaker 1: to make it more faster. Then they'll go in and 266 00:16:29,920 --> 00:16:34,320 Speaker 1: overclock it. Overclockers often will experiment with other pretty wild 267 00:16:34,400 --> 00:16:38,280 Speaker 1: stuff like liquid nitrogen cooling and that kind of thing 268 00:16:38,320 --> 00:16:40,840 Speaker 1: in order to get the absolute most out of the 269 00:16:40,880 --> 00:16:43,760 Speaker 1: performance of their machines. But then you're starting to talk 270 00:16:43,800 --> 00:16:47,880 Speaker 1: about setups that are truly crazy, and you're not likely 271 00:16:48,440 --> 00:16:52,960 Speaker 1: to encounter those things. One other thing I want to 272 00:16:52,960 --> 00:16:57,920 Speaker 1: talk about with CPUs or processors in general, are flops. 273 00:16:58,240 --> 00:17:00,760 Speaker 1: Now not talking about products that and do well in 274 00:17:00,800 --> 00:17:04,800 Speaker 1: the market. I'm talking about floating point operations per second 275 00:17:04,960 --> 00:17:09,800 Speaker 1: or flops. You'll often hear flops being thrown around as 276 00:17:09,800 --> 00:17:15,440 Speaker 1: a measure of computational performance, and you know we have 277 00:17:15,480 --> 00:17:18,160 Speaker 1: the clock speed is one version of this, well, flops 278 00:17:18,320 --> 00:17:23,760 Speaker 1: is something similar. It's the number of floating point operations 279 00:17:24,040 --> 00:17:28,800 Speaker 1: that the processor is able to handle per second. And 280 00:17:28,880 --> 00:17:33,240 Speaker 1: this is a place where GPUs or graphics processing units 281 00:17:33,280 --> 00:17:38,160 Speaker 1: often can outperform CPUs, So we look at flops. That's 282 00:17:38,200 --> 00:17:42,960 Speaker 1: another way really of just measuring how powerful or fast 283 00:17:43,640 --> 00:17:47,080 Speaker 1: a processor is. When we look at things like supercomputers, 284 00:17:47,480 --> 00:17:51,480 Speaker 1: we are often referencing their processing power in terms of 285 00:17:51,520 --> 00:17:54,400 Speaker 1: the number of flops like peda flops. You're talking about 286 00:17:54,640 --> 00:17:59,440 Speaker 1: astronomical numbers here when you're talking about floating point operations 287 00:17:59,440 --> 00:18:03,360 Speaker 1: per second. But it's just really another way of judging 288 00:18:03,480 --> 00:18:06,640 Speaker 1: the processing speed of a processor. And as I said, 289 00:18:06,680 --> 00:18:11,520 Speaker 1: it's more frequently something that we associate with GPUs than CPUs, 290 00:18:11,520 --> 00:18:14,119 Speaker 1: but it is an important thing to keep in mind. 291 00:18:14,760 --> 00:18:18,960 Speaker 1: So those are some real basic elements of CPUs. Again, 292 00:18:19,440 --> 00:18:21,800 Speaker 1: you can go into so much more detailed that I 293 00:18:21,840 --> 00:18:26,080 Speaker 1: thought that this would be a way to understand from 294 00:18:26,119 --> 00:18:28,520 Speaker 1: a very high level what CPUs are doing and why 295 00:18:28,560 --> 00:18:31,600 Speaker 1: they're important we can talk about other things in the future, 296 00:18:31,640 --> 00:18:36,000 Speaker 1: like hyper threading, for example, to talk about how that 297 00:18:36,160 --> 00:18:39,359 Speaker 1: plays into say a multi core processor. But I figured 298 00:18:39,400 --> 00:18:41,800 Speaker 1: that would go a little beyond just a tech Stuff 299 00:18:41,840 --> 00:18:44,720 Speaker 1: Tidbits episode. I'll probably do more of these in the future, 300 00:18:44,720 --> 00:18:47,920 Speaker 1: where I'll look at things like memory and other elements 301 00:18:48,200 --> 00:18:53,960 Speaker 1: in computers that are basic but often hard to understand 302 00:18:54,040 --> 00:18:56,720 Speaker 1: from for a newcomer, someone who has maybe heard the 303 00:18:56,800 --> 00:18:59,560 Speaker 1: term but they don't really understand what it means or 304 00:18:59,560 --> 00:19:04,240 Speaker 1: how it fits into the overall picture of technology. And 305 00:19:04,280 --> 00:19:07,040 Speaker 1: we'll do it beyond computers as well. We'll talk about 306 00:19:07,040 --> 00:19:10,960 Speaker 1: other types of technology and have these little tidbit episodes occasionally. 307 00:19:11,720 --> 00:19:14,199 Speaker 1: I hope you are all well. If you would like 308 00:19:14,240 --> 00:19:15,679 Speaker 1: to reach out to me, the best way to do 309 00:19:15,760 --> 00:19:18,159 Speaker 1: that is on Twitter. The handle for the show is 310 00:19:18,280 --> 00:19:23,520 Speaker 1: tech Stuff HSW and I'll talk to you again really soon. 311 00:19:30,119 --> 00:19:34,800 Speaker 1: Tech Stuff is an iHeartRadio production. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, 312 00:19:35,160 --> 00:19:38,840 Speaker 1: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen 313 00:19:38,880 --> 00:19:39,919 Speaker 1: to your favorite shows.