Component FAQ

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This is a FAQ For component essentials
What is the motherboard?

So the Motherboard:
The motherboard is one of the most essential parts of a computer. It contains a Socket, which the microprocessor is inserted into. It can also be known as the PCB board in some electronics. On APPLE computers this is considered the logic board. Sometimes these boards have integrated peripherals such as integrated audio, and also integrated graphics processing.


Components:
The socket: This defines what kind of microprocessor a computer uses, allowing the computer to run. There are many types of sockets but the most Common socket types are AM2, AM2+, and AM3 - these three socket types are owned and manufactured by AMD.

Intel uses a different socket format, LGA 771, LGA 1366, and LGA 775 which is the most common in Intel motherboards.

Chipset:
The chipset is the computers logic system, it usually consists of two main parts, the north bridge and the opposite south bridge which connects the CPU to the rest of the system. The northern bridge links the CPU to high-usage devices, such as RAM and a video card. The south chip usually controls some integrated peripherals such as USB, Ethernet, and some audio devices.



The CPU:
The CPU, also known as the Central Processing Unit is responsible for all mathematical calculations taking place inside a computer for it to function properly.
(Once again
Common socket types are AM2, AM2+, and AM3 - these three socket types are owned and manufactured by AMD.
Intel uses a different socket format, LGA 771, LGA 1366, and LGA 775 which is the most common in Intel motherboards.)

The Bios:
A Basic Input/Output System (BIOS). It is the first code to run when powering on a computer. It is a chip which controls the most basic function of a computer. Such as hardware control. It also initiates all of the main computer components when powering on.
The bios also contains a real time clock which is battery operated, which controls the functions of the bios.

The motherboard also has slots or ports for the attachment of various peripherals or support system/hardware. PCI-E slot on most newer motherboards. This is used exclusively for video cards. There is also some amount of PCI slots, these control other devices such as networking cards, sound cards, etc. There is also 2-8 ports (Depending on motherboard) for RAM also known as random access memory.

What is RAM?
Random Access Memory stores/writes/reads memory to be used by the CPU. This data accessed by RAM is only there while the computer is turned on, unlike the HDD which constantly has data on it. The majority of newer motherboards use DDR2 and DDR3, DDR3 is the fastest processing ram you can have atm.

Graphics Card:
The graphics card (sometimes known as a Graphcs processing unit or a video card) is a piece of hardware installed in a computer that is responsible for rendering the image on the computer's monitor or display screen. The most common mode now these GPU's run in is PCI-E 2.0 or PCI-E. Older motherboards will most likely use AGP.There is also integrated graphics accelerators which sometimes come ON board on a motherboard. This takes away some memory from your RAM and utilizes it as a onboard graphics card, but is not even close to as powerfull as an independant graphics card.

Hard Disk Drive:
The hard disk drive is also sometimes known as the HDD or Hard drive. This device stores digitally encoded data on rapidly rotating platters with magnetic surfaces. There are many different speeeds which the disk rotates. The faster RPM the faster data can be written.

This is my OWN information, not taken from any external source.
 
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