Hardware Basics for Software Engineers: CPUs, RAM, and Peripherals
Hardware Basics for Software Engineers: CPUs, RAM, and Peripherals Understanding hardware helps software work better. This guide keeps things simple and actionable for everyday projects. You don’t need to be a hardware expert to write faster code or design smarter systems. The CPU is the brain of a computer. It handles instructions, runs programs, and coordinates tasks. Modern CPUs have multiple cores, which let them do several things at once. Each core can run threads, and higher clock speeds push instructions through faster. Cache memory (L1, L2, L3) speeds up repeated data access. In practice, more cores help with parallel tasks, while higher clocks help single, tight loops. When choosing a machine, think about the workload: a web server benefits from more cores; a data processor might need faster memory access. ...