A math coprocessor is a computer chip that handles floating point operations and mathematical calculations on a computer. In early PCs, this chip was stand-alone and often optional, used primarily in computers where computer-aided design (CAD) was the primary focus. In today’s computers, it is usually built into the CPU, allowing the central processor to offload mathematical calculations to this chip. This helps the CPU to keep more processes running at the same time.
A math coprocessor.
Applications on a PC, such as a CAD program or even a spreadsheet, that handle floating point units (FPUs) and calculations are streamed to this coprocessor to help perform those calculations. This makes the CPU more available for operating system tasks and general PC management.
The math coprocessor can be compared to a computer’s graphics processing unit (GPU), a separate card that handles graphics rendering and can improve performance in graphics-intensive applications such as games. The coprocessor, while not as expensive or flashy on most PCs, is the chipset’s driving force for math. Considering that most of the actions of a computer are mathematical or binary, it plays a very important role, although normally no user of the computer sees or notices it.
Since newer computers include this component as part of the CPU, its actions are not visible other than through general CPU monitoring. While still optional, being part of the overall CPU helps performance because programs that can make use of these features will do so without user intervention. Comparing spreadsheet performance on two computers, one with and one without a math coprocessor, should show a considerable improvement in performance where the chip is present, assuming the CPU chip speeds are the same.
