What is a Core Processor?

What's all this talk about cores anyway? It's a brand of Microprocessor. Just like Kelloggs (brand) produces Corn Flakes, Raisin Bran and Pop Tarts, Intel produces different chips for the computer: Pentium, Celeron, and Core. One of Intel's competitors produces chips Phenom and Turon. All of these are incredibly fast and can meet your business needs. Core=processor so that means dual-core=2 processors and quad-core=4 processors. Nowadays, they are talking i7 Core processors and higher! That's like having 7 brains in your computer. Fast.

The processor is also called the CPU (central processing unit). The CPU is a chip. It's incorrect to refer to the tower that houses the motherboard on which the CPU resides as the CPU. It's more accurate to refer to it as the system or the tower.

The speeds are pretty easy to figure out: higher speeds mean faster processor. Cache (pronouced like the green stuff in your pocket) is just a storage place on the processor. It stores the next thing there while doing the last thing. That way it can get all the instructions done faster. The bigger the cache, the faster the chip.

Hopefully this explanation of core makes it a little easier for you to buy your next computer. During the next few weeks, I'll be explaining other items you might see in a computer ad. So if you have questions, please post them in the comments and I'll address them as I can.

Don't forget to enter the contest. It ends at 6pm EDT on April 1. The details are in my last post.