Clock Speed | Clock Rate

Clock Speed - This is the term used to describe the speed of a computers CPU (Central Processing Unit) measured in hertz (or cycles per second). You will commonly see computers today advertised as having (just an example) a 1.6 GHz or a 3 GHz processor.

1 GHz = 1 billion cycles per second.

When the first IBM PC made its debut in 1981 it used a processor with a Clock Speed of 4.77 MHz.

1 MHz = 1 million cycles per second.

On average over the past 30 years, the speed of the CPU in a typical PC has increased 1000 times!