CompTIA A+ Certification All-in-One Exam Guide

from Hyper-Threading, where the OS and applications must be written
specifically to handle the multiple threads. Note that even with multicore
processors, applications must be modified or optimized for this parallelism to
have a huge impact on performance.
Because one great technology advancement isn’t enough, both Intel and
AMD make multicore CPUs that incorporate Hyper-Threading as well. The
Intel Core i9-7960X, for example, sports 16 cores, Hyper-Threading, 16 MB
of L2 cache and 22 MB of L3 cache, and Turbo Boost to crank the clock
speed over 4 GHz when the system needs it. I get shivers just thinking about
it!
SIM This is a great time to head over to the Chapter 3 Show! and Click!
sims to see how to download and use the CPU-Z utility. Check out “What is
CPU-Z?” here: http://totalsem.com/100x.
Integrated Memory Controller
All current microprocessors have an integrated memory controller (IMC),
moved from the motherboard chip into the CPU to optimize the flow of
information into and out from the CPU. An IMC enables faster control over
things like the large L3 cache shared among multiple cores.
Just like in so many other areas of computing, manufacturers implement a
variety of IMCs in their CPUs. In practice, this means that different CPUs
handle different types and capacities of RAM. I’ll save the details on those
RAM variations for Chapter 4. For now, add “different RAM support” to
your list of things to look at when making a CPU recommendation for a
client.
Integrated Graphics Processing Unit
As you’ll read about in much more detail in Chapter 17, “Display
Technologies,” the video processing portion of the computer—made up of
the parts that put a changing image on the monitor—traditionally has a