Special Guest Casey Muratori (genuinely hyped for this)

• Introduction
• Basics of CPU architecture
• Clock speed and cores
• CPU cache
• Instruction set architecture
• Branch prediction and speculative execution
• Conclusion

Introduction

This article introduces the key concepts of CPU architecture and aims to provide a better understanding of how CPUs work.

Basics of CPU architecture

Explains the fundamental components of a CPU, such as the control unit, arithmetic logic unit, and registers, and how they work together to execute instructions.

Clock speed and cores

Discusses the importance of clock speed in CPU performance and explains how multiple cores can improve multitasking capabilities.

CPU cache

Details the role of CPU cache in speeding up data access for the processor and explains the hierarchy of cache levels in modern CPUs.

Instruction set architecture

Explores the concept of ISA, which dictates the instructions a CPU can execute, and examines the differences between RISC and CISC architectures.

Branch prediction and speculative execution

Explores advanced CPU features like branch prediction and speculative execution, which aim to improve performance by predicting and executing future instructions.

Conclusion

Summarizes the key takeaways from the article and emphasizes the importance of understanding CPU architecture for optimizing software performance.