But beyond that, there are another level: Core i3, i5, and i7, and Xeon. And the performance is no longer based on the clock frequency but the number of processor cores. From dual-core, then quad-core, then 6-core, 8-core, and so on. The clock frequency doesn't increase much, but number of core increased. Same things happens to the processor in our gadget or smartphone.
Clock frequency indeed determine the speed at which the computer works. The higher it is, the faster it works. But there are side effects for increasing the frequency: the processor temperature getting hotter and hotter. And processor manufacturers aware of this, that silicon (which made a processor) has limits in terms of heat it can hold. So manufacturers must change the way on how to improve computer performance.
The solution is to increase the number of processor cores in one chip to do what is called multiprocessing. In multiprocessing, the work that the computer has to do is divided into several processor cores.
Similar with our daily lives, work done by two people is usually faster than just one person. Thus increasing a performance that two person can achieve. Same things also works for processor, more core, more performance it's achieved. Exactly as expected.
However, the increase in the number of processor cores must be followed by software program that able to split the processing into different processor cores. Normally, this depends on the operating systems. If the program execution turns out cannot be shared between processor's cores, then the program just use one core at the time, and we not get advantage from multiprocessing.
And now, here I'm... writing this blog with a laptop powered by Intel Core i7-3630QM 2.4GHz which is a fast quad-core processor
