Processing power

Computer performance is the amount of work accomplished by a computer system. Depending on the context, high computer performance may involve one or more of the following:

The performance of any computer system can be evaluated in measurable, technical terms, using one or more of the metrics listed above. This way the performance can be

Whilst the above definition relates to a scientific, technical approach, the following definition given by Arnold Allen would be useful for a non-technical audience:

The word performance in computer performance means the same thing that performance means in other contexts, that is, it means "How well is the computer doing the work it is supposed to do?"

Computer software performance, particularly software application response time, is an aspect of software quality that is important in human–computer interactions.

Performance engineering within systems engineering, encompasses the set of roles, skills, activities, practices, tools, and deliverables applied at every phase of the systems development life cycle which ensures that a solution will be designed, implemented, and operationally supported to meet the performance requirements defined for the solution.

Performance engineering continuously deals with trade-offs between types of performance. Occasionally a CPU designer can find a way to make a CPU with better overall performance by improving one of the aspects of performance, presented below, without sacrificing the CPU's performance in other areas. For example, building the CPU out of better, faster transistors.

However, sometimes pushing one type of performance to an extreme leads to a CPU with worse overall performance, because other important aspects were sacrificed to get one impressive-looking number, for example, the chip's clock rate (see the megahertz myth).

Application Performance Engineering (APE) is a specific methodology within performance engineering designed to meet the challenges associated with application performance in increasingly distributed mobile, cloud and terrestrial IT environments. It includes the roles, skills, activities, practices, tools and deliverables applied at every phase of the application lifecycle that ensure an application will be designed, implemented and operationally supported to meet non-functional performance requirements.

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