One of the most frequently touted measures of processor performance is a given chip's speed in gigahertz. Processors with higher GHz ratings can, theoretically, do more in a given unit of time than ...

There was once a time when a processor ran at a single, set clock speed. It ran at that speed all day, every day, unless it was purposely over or under-clocked by a user. In this simpler time there ...

When purchasing a processor or desktop computer, you often look at the clock speed. Calculated in megahertz and gigahertz, or MHz and GHz, these measurements only tell one small part of the story of ...

Fire up the 2013 remix of the Eagles "Desperado". Listen to the beat: That's 60 beats per minute, or to an engineer, 1 Hertz (Hz). Lady Gaga's "Just Dance" is around twice that. It sounds fast, but ...

In 1998, Ask Ars was an early feature of the newly launched Ars Technica. Now, as then, it’s all about your questions and our community’s answers. Each week, we’ll dig into our question bag, provide ...

For years, clock speed ruled the roost. It was the one metric you could point to, devoid of context, to say one component was "faster" than another. It's literally right there in the name. Clock speed ...

AMD's new-for-2026 Ryzen 7 9850X3D processor kicks up the clocks and packs the same extra-fast cache in an effort to outpace the well-regarded Ryzen 7 9800X3D.

The question I hear over and over from readers and friends goes something like this: "I need a computer for running Microsoft Office and browsing the Web, not much else. How fast of a processor should ...

AMD’s new Ryzen 7 9850X3D seems powerful, though it's not a massive leap over what we already have.