For years, clock speed ruled the roost. It was the one metric you could point to, devoid of context, to say one component was "faster" than another. It's literally right there in the name. Clock speed ...
Fire up the 2013 remix of the Eagles "Desperado". Listen to the beat: That's 60 beats per minute, or to an engineer, 1 Hertz (Hz). Lady Gaga's "Just Dance" is around twice that. It sounds fast, but ...