Central Processing Unit (CPU)

The central processing unit (CPU) is often referred to as the ‘brains’ of computer which is responsible for performing all the arithmetic and logical operations. The concept of the CPU was first coined back in the 1950s. All modern CPUs are based on microchips consisting of thousands if not millions of microscopic transistors.

By turning on and off individual transistors, it represents binary zeroes and ones. Gigahertz (GHz) is the metric used to measure the computational power of a CPU in the form of clock speed. The higher the frequency, the more effectively and efficiently a CPU can perform.

This higher computational power of the CPU is what led to its usage in cryptocurrency mining in the early days. With more competition and an ever-growing mining industry, even CPUs ceases to be inefficient. This is where they are replaced by a more economically feasible component, the GPU (Graphical Processing Unit) and ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuits.)