The Motherboard
Aka Mainboard, Systemboard, Mobo
The motherboard is the very fundamental core of your system. Every single piece of hardware in your computer connects to it.
If you're house shopping, the motherboard would be the property upon which the house is built - it's the foundation of your investment, and it will influence many of the house-building decisions that will follow.
The motherboard will dictate a lot of things such as which type of processors your computer will use or how many different expansion cards it will hold. It is responsible for moving information between your other pieces of hardware, and the speed at which it can do this will vary. Generally a more expensive model will move information around quicker, and have more built-in features.
Processor
The processor is the part of the computer that does the math. Every single thing your computer does involves your processor running many (most likely millions) of calculations, and telling the rest of your system how to behave.
Certain applications are especially calculation heavy. Playing games, editing videos, pictures or music, and any sort of 3D design or modeling are all very demanding on your CPU, so it's important that you choose your processor wisely. In fact, when I help people configure a system, the first step is determining which CPU will work best for their applications.
There are many different types of processors being manufactured by different companies, but for the purpose of this article, I'll stick to the two companies that comprise 99% of the market share: AMD and Intel. "Which is better?" is not an easy question to answer. People have written volumes extolling the virtues of one processor, while condemning the flaws of others, and these battle lines are constantly being redrawn as contemporary hardware evolves.
Processors are reaching speed limits where they can't get any faster while remaining stable and not overheating. The newest trend to combat this challenge is by moving to Dual Core
Dual Core processors are being embraced by more and more developers, and their costs have dropped to make them competitive with the rest of the market. Even programs that aren't specifically written for dual core processors can still have a performance increase when your operating system can use one core to handle a good portion of the background tasks. Multi-tasking is the true strength of Dual Core processors. With a new version of Windows around the corner that promises more system overhead, I find that I have a very hard time recommending single-core processors these days.
processors. Think of this as 2 processors being combined into a single physical chip. Your system can split up the load between the two of them, giving you a performance increase without pushing processors beyond the stable heat limits.
RAM
Memory is like a blank piece of paper that your computer keeps notes in. Memory is accessed faster than your hard drive, so when your computer is running programs it copies information to your Memory, where it can quickly edit and access it. Memory only temporarily stores this information, and is constantly loading and unloading new information. The memory cannot permanently store information, which is why you lose unsaved information if your computer crashes or you lose power.
Memory has 2 important features to keep in mind: Size and Speed.
The size of memory you have, is usually expressed in Megabytes or Gigabytes, depending on how much you have. (1024 megabytes is 1 gigabyte). A few years back, 64 megabytes was a tremendous amount of memory for your computer to have. Today, I would sell a system with no less than 512 megabytes, and usually recommend 1 or 2 gigabytes of memory, depending on the customers' performance demands.
Hard Drive
This is where your computer stores everything. The information written to the Hard Drive stays there, even when the computer is powered off. It does this by having magnetic platters upon which information is stored. These platters spin while a sensor reads the data, much like a record player reads a vinyl album.
Hard Drive storage boils down to 2 major things: Capacity and Speed.
Capacity is how much storage space you have. Video, Music and extremely large picture files are the biggest files that most people use. This storage space is measured in Gigabytes, and drives sizes are fast approaching the Terabyte mark (that's 1000 Gigabytes!)
Speed is how quickly the hard drive accesses your stored files. On a fast hard drive, Windows boots faster and you can play, move, load, edit and delete files quicky as well. Hard drives speed is measured by the number of "revolutions per minute", or RPM. Again, to think of your hard drive like a record: The faster you turn it, the more music you can play in the same period of time!
There are different ways that hard drives connect to your motherboard. You might have heard the terms: IDE, SATA, or SCSI. I've found that SATA hard drives are ideal for 99% of our customers, and give the best performance for their price.
Video Card
Put simply, a video card is in charge of outputting a signal to your monitor. Depending on your task, this can be trivial, or very demanding.
This can be a very tricky step to visualize. When I talk to people about their video card needs, often they just know that they want a very clear picture and good graphics. At this point, it's important to try and separate what is handled by the monitor, what is handled by the video card, and what the relationship is between the two.
The video card is responsible for taking the information from your computer, and preparing it to be shown on your screen. This means it does all the necessary calculations for drawing images, sets the appropriate transparencies and colors, and a whole slew of other things. Once it has done all of the math, it gets ready to send the image to your screen by converting it to the signal that your monitor is expecting.
Sound Card
If you read the Video Card section, then this Sound Card section might give you a sense of déjà Vu. The sound card does exactly the same sort of stuff.
The sound card prepares an audio source to be sent to your speakers, headphone, or other audio device. It takes the audio processing load off of your CPU, and does all the hard work. It has special features built in which make it much more efficient at this sort of work.
For a majority of users, the most basic sound card is sufficient for everything they do. High quality motherboards even include a basic on-board audio card, giving you all the basic features of a sound card without needing to purchase one.
Higher end sound cards will include support for surround sound, better audio quality, faster compression when recording, and a wider array of inputs and outputs. High end sound cards are typically associated with sound recording, surround sound home theater, or video gaming.
Case
The computer case is pretty straightforward in concept. It's the chassis that everything else is assembled inside and offers a few minor conveniences. For example, many computer cases these days have easily accessible USB ports on the front of the computer, and sometimes even a headphone jack so that you can access these while sitting at your computer rather than having to climb behind it.
There is a greater selection of PC cases than any other component, and there's a wide variety of aesthetics, features, and prices. If you're having a system built for you by a system builder, odds are they've narrowed down your selection to a very few choices. This allows them to design effective shipping solutions, guarantee compatibility, and probably has aesthetics associated with company image.
Cases are an often neglected piece of hardware when it comes to carefully selecting your system components. Too often people choose form-over-function, giving them some flashy case that does a very inadequate job of keeping the system cool and quiet.
Disk Drives
There are a few common types of disk drives, and below I highlight the features and considerations of the most common types.
Floppy Drives - Floppy drives are the oldest, and most familiar form of media that our computers use. Just pop in the disk, copy the data, and eject it. They've become more scarce recently, as they have a very small storage capacity, and are being eschewed in favor of larger optical discs.
CD-ROM - This drive plays CD's, both audio and data. The speed that it operates is usually expressed in terms of the speed an Audio Disc plays at (which happens to be 1.2 megabits per second). Today, CD-Roms read at up to 52x, which is 52 times faster than an audio disc plays.
CD-RW - This drive can play CD's, and even make them! With a blank CD and the proper software, you can make your own data files or audio CDs. These are usually described by 2 numbers: Read Speed and Write Speed.
DVD-ROM - As CD-ROM, but it can also play DVDs. Exceptionally large programs are starting to be distributed on DVD's rather than CD's, because DVD's have much higher capacity. Since this drive can read both DVDs and CDs, and is only fractionally more expensive than the CD-ROM, I universally recommend the purchase of a DVD drive over a CD drive.
DVD/CD-RW or "Combo Drive" - This drive combines a CD-RW and a DVD-ROM. It can read CDs, DVDs, and Write CDs.
DVD-RW - This drive does it all. It reads CDs and DVDs, and it writes both CDs and DVDs. DVD has a few formats (referred to by obscure terms like "+", "-", and "dual layer"). Modern DVD-RW drives should support all these formats.
Cooling Systems
The number one killer of computer hardware is heat. If your system is constantly hotter than it should be, it's going to wear out your computer, and it will eventually fail. So let's address the ways to keep your system cool.
Any case you buy should have a number of fans in it. Some only have one at the rear, while others will also have an intake fan in the front. This will provide a constant stream of cool air from the front of the case, over the hot components, and out the rear. Higher quality cases come with 90mm or 120mm fans, while mainstream cases typically come with 80mm fans.
One of the hottest places in your computer is the CPU, and it's cooled with a heat sink and fan. The Heat Sink is a metal attachment to the processor which helps disperse the heat, usually using copper or another highly conductive metal. This heat sink is cooled with a fan, which keeps cool air moving past it. This makes the CPU heatsink and fan a very important selection when building a system. You want a fan that will keep your processor nice and cool, but you don't want it to sound like a tiny hurricane inside your computer either.
There are a lot of after-market cooling solutions for other parts of the system. They make RAM coolers, hard drive coolers, blower fans, and every other sort of noisy fan-based gadgetry. In general, if you have selected a smart case with good air movement, you won't need these extra fans.
Aka Mainboard, Systemboard, Mobo
The motherboard is the very fundamental core of your system. Every single piece of hardware in your computer connects to it.If you're house shopping, the motherboard would be the property upon which the house is built - it's the foundation of your investment, and it will influence many of the house-building decisions that will follow.
The motherboard will dictate a lot of things such as which type of processors your computer will use or how many different expansion cards it will hold. It is responsible for moving information between your other pieces of hardware, and the speed at which it can do this will vary. Generally a more expensive model will move information around quicker, and have more built-in features.
Processor
The processor is the part of the computer that does the math. Every single thing your computer does involves your processor running many (most likely millions) of calculations, and telling the rest of your system how to behave.Certain applications are especially calculation heavy. Playing games, editing videos, pictures or music, and any sort of 3D design or modeling are all very demanding on your CPU, so it's important that you choose your processor wisely. In fact, when I help people configure a system, the first step is determining which CPU will work best for their applications.
There are many different types of processors being manufactured by different companies, but for the purpose of this article, I'll stick to the two companies that comprise 99% of the market share: AMD and Intel. "Which is better?" is not an easy question to answer. People have written volumes extolling the virtues of one processor, while condemning the flaws of others, and these battle lines are constantly being redrawn as contemporary hardware evolves.
Processors are reaching speed limits where they can't get any faster while remaining stable and not overheating. The newest trend to combat this challenge is by moving to Dual Core
Dual Core processors are being embraced by more and more developers, and their costs have dropped to make them competitive with the rest of the market. Even programs that aren't specifically written for dual core processors can still have a performance increase when your operating system can use one core to handle a good portion of the background tasks. Multi-tasking is the true strength of Dual Core processors. With a new version of Windows around the corner that promises more system overhead, I find that I have a very hard time recommending single-core processors these days.
processors. Think of this as 2 processors being combined into a single physical chip. Your system can split up the load between the two of them, giving you a performance increase without pushing processors beyond the stable heat limits.
RAM
Memory is like a blank piece of paper that your computer keeps notes in. Memory is accessed faster than your hard drive, so when your computer is running programs it copies information to your Memory, where it can quickly edit and access it. Memory only temporarily stores this information, and is constantly loading and unloading new information. The memory cannot permanently store information, which is why you lose unsaved information if your computer crashes or you lose power.Memory has 2 important features to keep in mind: Size and Speed.
The size of memory you have, is usually expressed in Megabytes or Gigabytes, depending on how much you have. (1024 megabytes is 1 gigabyte). A few years back, 64 megabytes was a tremendous amount of memory for your computer to have. Today, I would sell a system with no less than 512 megabytes, and usually recommend 1 or 2 gigabytes of memory, depending on the customers' performance demands.
Hard Drive
This is where your computer stores everything. The information written to the Hard Drive stays there, even when the computer is powered off. It does this by having magnetic platters upon which information is stored. These platters spin while a sensor reads the data, much like a record player reads a vinyl album.Hard Drive storage boils down to 2 major things: Capacity and Speed.
Capacity is how much storage space you have. Video, Music and extremely large picture files are the biggest files that most people use. This storage space is measured in Gigabytes, and drives sizes are fast approaching the Terabyte mark (that's 1000 Gigabytes!)
Speed is how quickly the hard drive accesses your stored files. On a fast hard drive, Windows boots faster and you can play, move, load, edit and delete files quicky as well. Hard drives speed is measured by the number of "revolutions per minute", or RPM. Again, to think of your hard drive like a record: The faster you turn it, the more music you can play in the same period of time!
There are different ways that hard drives connect to your motherboard. You might have heard the terms: IDE, SATA, or SCSI. I've found that SATA hard drives are ideal for 99% of our customers, and give the best performance for their price.
Video Card
Put simply, a video card is in charge of outputting a signal to your monitor. Depending on your task, this can be trivial, or very demanding.This can be a very tricky step to visualize. When I talk to people about their video card needs, often they just know that they want a very clear picture and good graphics. At this point, it's important to try and separate what is handled by the monitor, what is handled by the video card, and what the relationship is between the two.
The video card is responsible for taking the information from your computer, and preparing it to be shown on your screen. This means it does all the necessary calculations for drawing images, sets the appropriate transparencies and colors, and a whole slew of other things. Once it has done all of the math, it gets ready to send the image to your screen by converting it to the signal that your monitor is expecting.
Sound Card
If you read the Video Card section, then this Sound Card section might give you a sense of déjà Vu. The sound card does exactly the same sort of stuff.The sound card prepares an audio source to be sent to your speakers, headphone, or other audio device. It takes the audio processing load off of your CPU, and does all the hard work. It has special features built in which make it much more efficient at this sort of work.
For a majority of users, the most basic sound card is sufficient for everything they do. High quality motherboards even include a basic on-board audio card, giving you all the basic features of a sound card without needing to purchase one.
Higher end sound cards will include support for surround sound, better audio quality, faster compression when recording, and a wider array of inputs and outputs. High end sound cards are typically associated with sound recording, surround sound home theater, or video gaming.
Case
The computer case is pretty straightforward in concept. It's the chassis that everything else is assembled inside and offers a few minor conveniences. For example, many computer cases these days have easily accessible USB ports on the front of the computer, and sometimes even a headphone jack so that you can access these while sitting at your computer rather than having to climb behind it.There is a greater selection of PC cases than any other component, and there's a wide variety of aesthetics, features, and prices. If you're having a system built for you by a system builder, odds are they've narrowed down your selection to a very few choices. This allows them to design effective shipping solutions, guarantee compatibility, and probably has aesthetics associated with company image.
Cases are an often neglected piece of hardware when it comes to carefully selecting your system components. Too often people choose form-over-function, giving them some flashy case that does a very inadequate job of keeping the system cool and quiet.
Disk Drives
There are a few common types of disk drives, and below I highlight the features and considerations of the most common types.Floppy Drives - Floppy drives are the oldest, and most familiar form of media that our computers use. Just pop in the disk, copy the data, and eject it. They've become more scarce recently, as they have a very small storage capacity, and are being eschewed in favor of larger optical discs.
CD-ROM - This drive plays CD's, both audio and data. The speed that it operates is usually expressed in terms of the speed an Audio Disc plays at (which happens to be 1.2 megabits per second). Today, CD-Roms read at up to 52x, which is 52 times faster than an audio disc plays.
CD-RW - This drive can play CD's, and even make them! With a blank CD and the proper software, you can make your own data files or audio CDs. These are usually described by 2 numbers: Read Speed and Write Speed.
DVD-ROM - As CD-ROM, but it can also play DVDs. Exceptionally large programs are starting to be distributed on DVD's rather than CD's, because DVD's have much higher capacity. Since this drive can read both DVDs and CDs, and is only fractionally more expensive than the CD-ROM, I universally recommend the purchase of a DVD drive over a CD drive.
DVD/CD-RW or "Combo Drive" - This drive combines a CD-RW and a DVD-ROM. It can read CDs, DVDs, and Write CDs.
DVD-RW - This drive does it all. It reads CDs and DVDs, and it writes both CDs and DVDs. DVD has a few formats (referred to by obscure terms like "+", "-", and "dual layer"). Modern DVD-RW drives should support all these formats.
Cooling Systems
The number one killer of computer hardware is heat. If your system is constantly hotter than it should be, it's going to wear out your computer, and it will eventually fail. So let's address the ways to keep your system cool.Any case you buy should have a number of fans in it. Some only have one at the rear, while others will also have an intake fan in the front. This will provide a constant stream of cool air from the front of the case, over the hot components, and out the rear. Higher quality cases come with 90mm or 120mm fans, while mainstream cases typically come with 80mm fans.
One of the hottest places in your computer is the CPU, and it's cooled with a heat sink and fan. The Heat Sink is a metal attachment to the processor which helps disperse the heat, usually using copper or another highly conductive metal. This heat sink is cooled with a fan, which keeps cool air moving past it. This makes the CPU heatsink and fan a very important selection when building a system. You want a fan that will keep your processor nice and cool, but you don't want it to sound like a tiny hurricane inside your computer either.
There are a lot of after-market cooling solutions for other parts of the system. They make RAM coolers, hard drive coolers, blower fans, and every other sort of noisy fan-based gadgetry. In general, if you have selected a smart case with good air movement, you won't need these extra fans.
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