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Gigahertz (GHz) is a unit of frequency used in computing to measure a processor's clock speed. The clock speed indicates the number of cycles a Central Processing Unit (CPU) can complete in one second.

Gigahertz and clock speed

A measure of cycles: One hertz (Hz) is one cycle per second. "Giga" is the prefix for a billion, so one gigahertz is one billion cycles per second.

An indicator of processing power: A CPU with a higher clock speed can execute more cycles in the same amount of time, generally resulting in faster performance. For example, a 3.5 GHz processor can execute 3.5 billion instructions per second.

Heat and power consumption: Higher clock speeds can lead to increased power consumption and heat generation. Modern processors balance high performance with thermal and energy efficiency to avoid overheating.