GHz stands for gigahertz, which is a unit of measurement for alternating current or electromagnetic wave frequencies equal to 1,000,000,000 (one billion) Hz (hertz) . In the context of a computer processor or CPU, GHz is a clock frequency, also known as a clock rate or clock speed, representing a cycle of time. The clock speed measures the number of cycles your CPU executes per second, measured in GHz. A higher GHz number for a processor means that the processor can run and process data faster. However, clock speed is just one of many factors that impact how fast a processor actually processes data. Other factors include the number of cores, the architecture of the processor, and the efficiency of the processors use of clock cycles.