Hi everyone it’s H here again, I am sorry I haven’t posted in so long, but I should be able to get back to normal posting now. In this post I am going to tell you guys about what is inside of your computer, as in its internal components, as well as what said internal components actually do. Here is some terms you may hear from computer people when they are talking about your computer.
-CPU- Your CPU, or Central Processing Unit is probably the single most important component of your computer other than its hard drive, your CPU is sort of like your PC’s brain, and it is what does the thinking of your computer. It’s speed is measured in hertz, my understanding is that a processor that runs at one hert is capable of doing one calculation per second, of course now days processors run at many hundreds of thousands of hertz, and many CPUs have multiple “cores” each of which can do its own individual “thread” or set of data to be calculated (sort of like a persons “train of thought”). Certain CPUs even have a technology called “hyper threading” which allows a single core to act as several cores; in layman’s terms it is the equivalent of being able of focus on two or more things at the same time.
-Hard Drive- Your hard drive is what contains all of your saved data, as well as your “OS” or operating system. Your hard drive consist of several metal disks which are much like those you put into a CD drive, the discs in your hard drive store a lot more data than a normal CD though, and each side of each disk can have data on it, hard drives today can have hundreds of billions of binary digits stored on them. In other words, lots and lots of data.
The exception to the previous explanation is SSDs or solid state drives which store data in the same way as flash drives do: with absolutely no moving parts whatsoever, they also have a faster read/write speed (how fast data is transferred from you computer to the drive), they also are less prone to damage due to bumps and falls. SSDs are however a relatively new technology so few computers have them as of early 2011. They are also more prone to “dying” due to prolonged use.
-RAM- Your RAM chips are what holds all of what your computer is processing at the time (much like a persons “short term memory”), RAM stands for Random Access Memory, because RAM chips use solid state memory, it is a lot faster for the computer to just store data that it is using on the RAM chips rather than the hard drive, this is why more RAM means a faster PC, because more RAM means your computer can hold more in its short term memory. This post is an example of that, as I sit at my computer typing this the computer’s RAM is holding all of what I am typing in its RAM, if it used its hard drive for this there would be a noticeable delay between me making an edit, and it appearing on screen. Because the computer would have to save my key-presses in it's hard drive, then go back into its hard drive, find the keystrokes and display them on the screen.
-Graphics Card- A computer’s graphics card is the part of the computer that lets it display things on the screen, for simple typing, or internet browsing the graphics card does little, what it is very important for is photo, video editing, watching-high-res videos, and gaming, newer games have hi-resolution graphics, and many have advanced physics which are handled by the graphics card. Your graphics card actually has its own mini-CPU (known as a GPU or Graphics Processing Unit), which while it is less powerful than your “main” CPU it is important, as it is totally dedicated to nothing but graphics; high-end graphics cards can sometimes have processors as fast, or faster than some low-end CPUs, your graphics card also has its own RAM (which in the context of graphics cards is referred to as “dedicated graphics memory”). An exception to that rule is “integrated graphics” common in non-gaming PCs, integrated graphics cards, rather than having their own memory use your computers RAM for graphics, on systems not designed for gaming this has little effect on performance, however on gaming PCs this can be detrimental to your frame rate (speed).
Those are the major components of your computer, there are many other components though, but they are much less important, however one that deserves a final mention here is your “power supply” which takes power from the wall plug, and runs it through a transformer in order to give your PC the amount of power it needs.
Well, that’s all for now, in the comments below please give me your feedback, as well as any knowledge about computer hardware that you have picked up! No matter how much you know, there is still much to learn.
-H-
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