Editing Instruction cycle (section)

==Execute stage==
The CPU sends the decoded instruction (decoded from the CU) as a set of control signals to corresponding components. Depending on the type of instruction, any of these can happen:

* Arithmetic/logical operations can be executed by the ALU (for example, ADD, SUB, AND, OR)<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://www.rvstcc.ac.in/assets/img/pdf/unit-1.pdf |title=ALU (Arithmetic Logic Unit)}}</ref>
* Read/writes from memory can be executed (for example, loading/storing bytes) 
* Control flow alterations can be executed (for example, jumps or branches) - at this stage, if a jump were to occur, instead of the PC incrementing to the adjacent pointer, it would jump to the pointer specified in the instruction

This is the only stage of the instruction cycle that is useful from the perspective of the end-user. Everything else is overhead required to make the execute step happen.