CPU - This is the most important part of any PC that you will probably never see. Why? Because it resides underneath that fan and heatsink sitting on your motherboard. These are in place to keep your processor cool and prevent it from exploding (yes, literally. Without a heatsink, a CPU can get hot enough to pop and put a hole in your motherboard). There's no need to panic, however. If you do have a heatsink failure and the CPU starts to get too hot, there are safeguards in place that will shut your computer down.
Now, there are many different types of CPU's, from energy-sipping mobile processors for laptops all the way to 12-core monsters designed for corporate servers. The most common types for the average consumer are dual-core and quad-core, with some high end processors having 6-cores. The speed of the CPU is measured in Gigahertz (Ghz), and can also vary greatly from 1.0Ghz for small netbooks and some smartphones, all the way up to 3.4Ghz for the best of the best.
Right now, some of you are scratching your heads, wondering just what cores and Gigahertz are. Gigahertz is a measure of how many cycles the CPU can do in one second. For example, the average home PC less than a couple of years old runs at around 2.8Ghz. That's 2.8 Billion bits every second! This processing power is multiplied by the number of cores a CPU has. In its most basic terms, a core is sort of like a "processor within a processor". Current technology allows chip makers to put multiple CPU's on a single processor die. The picture below will give you some idea of what I mean:
As you can see, each one of the boxes labeled "Core" is a seperate processor, each one running at 3.4Ghz on this particular model. That's a total of 20.4Ghz of processing power, or the ability to process 20.4 Billion bits of information every second! Pretty neat huh?
Ok, now it's time to move to the next piece of hardware, which is also (usually) the largest:
Motherboard - If your PC was a town, the motherboard would be the road network. It's main job is to transport all the information between all of your PC's components. On top of that, it also controls your USB ports, as well as giving you the ability to connect speakers, a network cable, and usually a monitor.
RAM - This is the temporary memory on your computer. Each time you open a program, it loads information to the RAM to allow the CPU to access the programs information much much faster than it could from your hard drive.
Hard Drive - This is the permanent memory in your computer. Traditional hard drives are comprised of one or more spinning platters, over which resides a magnetic pickup head (think an old phonograph, except the needle doesn't actually touch the record). The head moves across the platter and accesses the information stored on the hard drive.
There are a few advantages to using an SSD. First since there are no moving parts, they are a lot more durable and resistant to impact, making them ideal for use in laptops. Second, they can access information a lot faster since there is no reader head having to search over the surface of a platter. However, one downside to SSD's is their price. Since it is a fairly new technology, SSD's tend to be about 4 to 5 times more expensive than the traditional platter hard drives.
Add-in cards - These are basically cards that can be added into the PC that allow the end-user to customize their PC to fit their needs. These can include one or more Video Cards, a TV Tuner card, Network cards, Audio cards, etc. I will go into more detail on these in one of my later blogs about upgrading your PC.
So that's it! Your PC in a nutshell. I hope this has given you some insight on just what goes on inside your PC. Over the next few posts, I'll give you tips on upgrading your existing PC, buying a new one, and even (gasp!) building your own for those that are feeling adventurous. Until next time!
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