The processor is together with the memory and the motherboard the most important part of a computer. It is also called CPU, which stands for Central Processing Unit. It handles all processes the user wants in the right order.

To connect it to the motherboard you put it with the pins down into the CPU socket. The CPU socket is the socket where the processor is connected to the motherboard. There are several types of sockets for several types of CPU's. So not every CPU fits in every socket. For example if you have a motherboard which has a Socket A, you must be sure that the cpu you want to use is a Socket A cpu.Furthermore there are motherboards which only support AMD processors and others which support only Intel processors.



On which socket works which CPU?
As I said not every CPU fits on every socket. There are several different sockets and several different CPU's. Below there is a scheme of which CPU fits in which socket.

Type of socket	Type of processor
Socket 370	VIA C3 “Nehemiah” 1 GHz, Intel Celeron (PPGA), Intel Pentium 3
Socket 478	Intel Pentium 4
Socket 604	Intel Xeon HT (Nacona)
Socket 754	AMD Athlon, AMD Athlon 64, AMD Sempron
Socket 771	Intel Xeon
Socket 775	Intel Core 2 Duo
Socket 939	AMD Athlon 64, AMD Sempron, AMD Athlon X2
Socket 940	AMD Opteron
Socket A	AMD Athlon, AMD Duron, AMD Sempron
Socket AM2	AMD AM2 Athlon 64, AMD AM2 Athlon 64 X2
Socket F	AMD Oteron

What is a socket?
A socket is the place on the motherboard where you install your CPU. Using the socket the CPU can communicate with the motherboard and via the motherboard with all the other devices attached to the motherboard.
As you can see in the picture above you see that a CPU is a little plate with a lot of pins on the back. These pins need to be connected to the motherboard and therefore is the socket. An example of a socket is shown in the pictures below?

For example:A CPU running at 750 MHz might be using a 100 MHz FSB. This means there is an internal clock multiplier setting (also called bus/core ratio) of 7.5; the CPU is set to run at 7.5 times frequency of the front side bus: 100 MHz x 7.5 = 750 MHz. By varying either the FSB or the multiplier, different CPU speeds can be achieved.

What is cache?
The cache is a block of memory for temporary storage of data likely to be used again. The CPU and hard drive frequently use a cache. It is an area where frequently accessed data can be stored for quick access.There are a few types of cache. For example there is a L1 (level 1), L2 (level 2) and L3 (level 3) cache.

Now what is the difference between L1, L2 and L3 cache?
If a cpu frequently needs data from the cache, the cache can be access quick as said before. But how quick the data can be reached from the cache and how much data in the cache can be stored depends on the ‘level’ of the cache. The L1 cache is a cache which is the quickest but there can be stored less data.
The L2 cache is a cache which is a bit slower but there can be stored much more data then in the L1 cache.The L3 cache is a cache which is even more slower but there can be stored even more data then in the L2 cache. The L3 cache is a newer cache and you won’t see this often.

What is Hyperthreading?
Hyperthreading is a technology from Intel which takes care that 2 virtual threads can be executed at once.
If there are certain CPU parts aren’t being used by one thread, than these can be used to execute another thread. Without hyperthreading it can occur that a thread needs to wait and that the most CPU parts do nothing.
A reason why a tread has to wait can be that there are for example 2 instructions given to the CPU and that instruction 2 can only be executed if instruction 1 has been executed and no earlier.



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