[ The PC Guide | Introduction to the PC | Overview of Systems and Components ]

One of the smallest parts of the computer but the one that gets most of the attention, the processor is often thought of as the "brain" of the computer. An extremely sophisticated piece of miniaturized electronics, the processor (often called the CPU or Central Processing Unit) is at the bottom of all tasks the PC performs. The processor reads instructions (commands) from memory that tell it what it needs to do to accomplish the work that the user wants, and then executes them.

Next: System Memory

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