The release of Intel’s 8086 microprocessor in 1978 was a watershed moment for personal computing. The DNA of that chip is likely at the center of whatever computer—Windows, Mac, or Linux—you’re using ...

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(1) The primary pathway between the CPU and memory. The speed is derived from the number of parallel channels (16 bit, 32 bit, etc.) and clock speed. Also known as a "frontside bus," it is faster than ...

Cache prefetching is what allows processors to have data and/or instructions ready for use in a fast local cache rather than having to wait for a fetch request to trickle through to system RAM and ...