For processor specifications, the cpu-monkey site may be useful.

1. What is the brand of your PC?

• There are two major markets: companies and individuals, who make different choices.
• Worldwide in 2025: Lenovo, HP, Dell, Apple, Asus, Acer
• Amazon France in February 2026 : Lenovo, Asus, Apple, Dell, HP (portables)

2. What year was your PC manufactured or purchased?

• Computers get more and more powerful, operating systems and applications use more and more computing power: changing computers every 3 years was common practice.
• This strategy is evolving in the context of the climate transition, since it is the manufacture, rather than the use, of a computer that is responsible for the largest carbon footprint.

3. What processor family does your PC use?

• There are two main ISA (set of CPU instructions) nowadays: x86 and ARM.
• See here for families of processors.
• Most manufacturers (except Apple) use x86 processors. The two leading manufacturers of them are Intel and AMD (around 2/3 - 1/3 up to 2020, less since). See here.
• Since 2020, Apple sells laptops with ARM processors (M series). The MacBook Neo use an A18 Pro processor, the A series was used before only for iPhone and iPad.
• There are now Windows PC with ARM processors (Qualcomm Snapdragon, ARM Laptops)
• Most smartphones and tablets use ARM processors.
• Part de marché mondiale par fabricant de CPU (dernier trimestre 2025)

4. Do you know the exact model of the processor?

• There have been seven versions of the 8086.
• There are 15 different versions of the Intel Core i5 (14ᵉ génération) launched in the first quarter of 2024.

5. How many cores does your processor have?

• The first consumer-grade processor with more than one core is the Intel Core 2 en 2006.
• Each core has its own ALU and set of registers, and each one can execute a different program.

6. What is the base frequency of your processor?

• The first processor of the x86 family, the 8086, launched in 1978, started with a frequency of 5 MHz. 
• For a long time, increasing processor performance was achieved by increasing frequency.
• In the early 2000s, frequencies reached a few GHz, and haven't improved since.

7. Does your processor have a turbo boost mode?

• Some cores can have their frequency increased for a short period of time.

8. Does your processor have high performance cores and high efficiency cores?

• Current processors have now often two kinds of cores: some performant ones and some efficient ones.

9. How many execution units does your internal graphics processor have?

• At first, microprocessors (their ALUs) were only able to perform integer operations; coprocessors, like the 8087, were sometimes added for floating-point computations.
• When bitmap screens appear (Macintosh, 1984), the processor was doing all the work for drawing windows and their moves. Such operations are quite specific, and they are even more for 3D rendering.
• Graphics cards with a specialized processor have therefore been designed for these tasks. Now, laptop's processors have a specific part dedicated to do the display.
• GPUs have generally a significant higher number of cores than CPUs.

10. Does your PC have a graphical processor external to the processor?

• Laptops (and desktop computers) may still have an external graphics card, because it is still much more powerful than the internal part.
• Comparaison of GPU performance between Apple M2 Ultra, Intel Core i9-13900HK and Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090.
• Important difference between integrated and external (or dedicated) GPUs: the former share main memory with the CPU, while external GPUs have their own memory.
• NVidia, well known for its external graphic cards, has designed an ARM processor with integrated GPU for Windows laptop, the N1X, with top performances.

11. Does your processor have Neural Processing Units?

• Some processors have a part for matrix multiplications (tensors), which are used to speed up some AI operations.

12. What technology is used to manufacture your processor?

• Technology has continuously evolved (the 8086 uses a technology of 3 µm; today, processors using a 3 nm technology are available), but it is expected that this progression will come to a halt soon.

13. In 1975, Gordon Moore predicted that:

• the number of transistors on an integrated circuit would double every two years

14. What is the L3 cache size of your processor?

• There are usually three levels of caches:
  • L1: each core has a cache for instructions and another for data,
  • L2: behind them, there is a cache for each core,
  • L3: Then, there is a unified cache for all cores.
• It seems that Apple chips do not have an L3 cache

15. What is the size of the main memory of your PC?

• Memory was expensive when the first personal computers were launched: the Apple II had initially 4kB of main memory, the first IBM PC had 16 kB.
• Now, 4 GB of main memory is considered as the minimum, and it doesn’t hurt to have 8 GB.
• The price of RAM has increased a lot since 2025 because of the high demand for AI training and inference.

16. What kind of disk does your PC have?

• Hard disk drives, using magnetic technology with one or more rotating platters, were invented by IBM in 1954. The first one sold in 1956 had a capacity of 3.75 MB and was the size of a refrigerator.
• The Apple II used audio cassettes for loading programs and storing data, then there were floppy disks. In 1983, a 10 MB hard drive was included as standard equipment in the IBM PC XT.
• Solid-state drives, using integrated circuits, started to be used in PC in 2006. Now, all laptops use such drives.

17. What is the capacity of the disk of your PC?

• Even though the cloud is being used more and more, a PC for a student should have at least a capacity of 256 MB.

18. What free space is available on your disk?

• If you are below 10%, it's time to clean up a bit to free some space, or you're in for trouble.

19. Do you back up the data on your PC?

• SSD are more reliable than HDD : Une étude prouve que les SSD sont plus fiables que les disques durs sur le long terme
• But they aren't 100% reliable! And the PC itself may break down!

20. What operating system is used by your PC?

• Windows has dominated the desktop and laptop operating system market for many years.
• But Android is above if mobile's and tablets are counted.

21. The operating system of your PC is?

• The 8086 was a 16-bit microprocessor: it was able to address 2¹⁶ = 64 kB of memory. 32-bit microprocessors started to appear in 1980 (for example, the Motorola MC68000, used in the first Macintosh).
• To exceed the 4 GB limit, 64-bit microprocessors were introduced the early 2000s.

Of course, the operating system (and the applications) have to be adapted to this characteristic.

22. Does your PC have another installed operating system?

• It was quite common to have PCs with two operating systems (Windows and Linux) in university computer rooms.
• Now, with the availability of virtualization on most PCs, the need is less important.

23. What is the approximate size of your screen?

• It is a difficult compromise between the ease of use of a large screen and the associated weight.

24. What is your screen resolution?

• The first Macintosh had a monochrome screen with a resolution of 512 x 342.
• It is quite typical now to have full HD resolution (1920 x 1080).

25. What are the available ports on your PC?

• To exchange data between your PC and another device using a cable, two things have to be considered:
  • the connectors of the cable (and therefore the ports on your PC),
  • the protocol used.
• They are often confused.
• The standards for connecting screens are: VGA, DVI, HDMI, DisplayPort; the last two also support audio, and the last one can carry USB data.
• RJ-45 is the standard for network (Ethernet) access.
• USB is used to connect other peripherals: keyboards, cameras, printers, etc. It also has a power supply functionality. There are 2 main connectors: type-A and type-C.
• Thunderbolt is a hardware connector designed by Intel to carry DisplayPort and PCIe signals, and also DC power; it now uses the type-C connector.

26. What wireless connection technologies are available on your PC?

27. What is the weight of your PC?

• in general, the bigger the screen, the heavier the PC.

28. What is the capacity of your PC battery in Wh?

• The higher, the better. But also the heavier for a given technology (Lithium-ion now).

29. What is the thermal design power (TDP) in W of your processor?

• It gives you an indication of the power consumption of your PC.

30. What is your PC's claimed autonomy?

• You will often have to use your PC for 3 hours or more.
• But the autonomy depends also on what you are doing on your PC. The size of the screen must also be considered.