Hardware+Theory

HARDWARE THEORY
By Stephanie Anderson

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What is hardware?
A computer comprises of hardware and software. Hardware is the name given to physical components (eg, circuit boards, mouse) while software refers to the programs loaded onto the computer. Hardware can be installed inside a computer or connected to ports. When buying a new computer, hardware specifications (commonly called specs) are listed. To assist you in understanding what each of theses specifications means, I have defined the basics and compared the following two computers:

Computer A: Acer Aspire 5422g  Computer B: HP Pavillion MS224IN

=1. Central Processing Unit: = ... Its speed is measured in Gigahertz. 1GHz per second is 1 billion clock cycles. The faster your CPU, the better your computer will run. ... Popular CPU manufacturers are Intel and AMD. || Intel Core i5-460M 2.53GHz || AMD ATHLON 1.91GHz ||
 * || DEFINITION || COMPUTER<span style="color: #ffffff; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;">_ A || <span style="color: #4616b6; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;">COMPUTER<span style="color: #ffffff; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;">_ B ||
 * [[image:5-cpu.jpg width="131" height="121"]] || <span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;">The Central Processing Unit (CPU) is responsible for interpreting and executing the commands from the computer's hardware and software.

=<span style="background-color: #e5e8c9; color: #e15159; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: 22px;">2. Hard Disk Drive: = <span style="color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;">... <span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;">The amount of data an HDD can store is measured in Gigabytes. The more Gigabytes your hard disk drive has, the more data you can store. <span style="color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;">... <span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;">Popular HDD manufacturers are Seagate, Western Digital and Hitachi. || <span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;">500GB HDD || 320GB HDD ||
 * || <span style="color: #4616b6; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;">DEFINITION || <span style="color: #4616b6; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;">COMPUTER _ A || <span style="color: #4616b6; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;">COMPUTER _ B ||
 * [[image:http://static.myce.com/images_posts/2010/03/HDD-ST340014A-N-unit.jpg width="116" height="102"]] || <span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;">The hard disk drive (HDD) is the main data storage device. The operating system, software, and almost all the other files are stored in the hard disk drive. It is often called the “C drive”.

=<span style="background-color: #e5e8c9; color: #e15159; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: 22px;">3. Random Access Memory: = <span style="color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;">... <span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;">The amount of data that RAM is capable of storing is measured in Megabytes and Gigabytes. <span style="color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;">... <span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;">Popular manufacturers are Corsair, Samsung, Kingston and Micron. || <span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;">4GB DDR3 RAM || 2GB DDR2 RAM ||
 * || <span style="color: #4616b6; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;">DEFINITION || <span style="color: #4616b6; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;">COMPUTER _ A || <span style="color: #4616b6; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;">COMPUTER _ B ||
 * [[image:http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/ram-ch.jpg width="115" height="99"]] || <span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;">Random Access Memory (RAM) is the temporary storage in a computer, and controls the amount of data it can work with at a time.

=<span style="background-color: #e5e8c9; color: #e15159; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: 22px;">4. Graphics Card: = <span style="color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;">... <span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;">Popular Graphics Card manufacturers are NVIDIA and Radeon. || <span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;">NVIDIA GeForce <span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;">GT 420M || NVIDIA GeForce G210 with 512 MB ||
 * || <span style="color: #4616b6; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;">DEFINITION || <span style="color: #4616b6; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;">COMPUTER _ A || <span style="color: #4616b6; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;">COMPUTER _ B ||
 * [[image:http://files.witnessthis.co.za/2010/06/Gaming-graphics-card.jpg width="127" height="104"]] || <span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;">The Graphics Card or Video Card is the hardware component responsible for rendering the image on the screen. They need to be compatible with the motherboard.

=<span style="background-color: #e5e8c9; color: #e15159; font-family: 'Courier New',Courier,monospace; font-size: 22px;">5. Motherboard: = <span style="color: #ffffff; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;">... <span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;">Popular manufacturers are ASUS, AOpen, Intel, ABIT, MSI, gigabyte, and Biostar. || Intel || AMD ||
 * || <span style="color: #4616b6; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;">DEFINITION || <span style="color: #4616b6; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;">COMPUTER _ A || <span style="color: #4616b6; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;">COMPUTER _ B ||
 * [[image:http://www.build-gaming-computers.com/images/best-motherboard.jpg width="147" height="98"]] || <span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt;">The Motherboard is the meeting place of the ports and hardware of a computer. It houses the CPU. The motherboard determines which hardware components you can install on your computer.

<span style="color: #097171; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Below is an image showing various other hardware components:



For further information on hardware, visit the following sites:


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