The computer megathread: Should I?
I should change my title to Megathreader.
Alright, so you've got some money, congratulations! You have decided that you're going to invest in a computer. Again, congratulations! Before you make that investment, let's talk about what you need to know about the computer world.
Terms you should know:
Motherboard: Otherwise known as logic board on Mac computers, this is the unit everything plugs into. Your RAM, CPU, and other little doo-hickeys will all rest in this board. They are very fragile, and if they fail can quite literally blow up in your face.
CPU: Central processing unit. The CPU is the little chip that holds your processor. It plugs into the motherboard and does all the little math wizardry you need to get your computer to run calculator and notepad. CPU's are associated with a number called their Clock Signal Frequency, which is KHZ-MHZ-GHZ. This is the speed associated with your processor and tells how fast a program has the capability to run in easy terms. We call that performance! Some CPU's (most nowadays) have multi-core-processing, which means that for each core, your computer has that number in KHZ-MHZ-GHZ to work with. This increases how much a computer can handle. If you're using more than one program that is CPU heavy, you can half the beating your computer takes with more than one core to handle each program. This is all automatic! On the other side, another core can take over for one that is at 100% capacity to keep your precious PC from crashing. More cores is always a good thing, but some programs don't utilize all of them.
RAM: One of the most common PC terms. While the CPU takes care of most of the work, RAM is your system's memory. RAM stores data to be accessed by the system to make what you're doing seem 'faster'. Say you're using photoshop and doing some painting. RAM is what stores the stroke of the brush and feeds it to the CPU to be processed and returned so that it appears without lag. The more RAM you have, the quicker the response. While more RAM can speed up a computer, it also is not an end-all solution. Some OS types can't read a certain amount of RAM, so keep that in mind. There are also RAM threads that optimize ram speeds, but that's more of an advanced strategy.
GPU: Yeah, you guys know what this is. Graphics processing, aka your Graphics card. It's also referred to as VPU, so don't get all confused. So what does this do if the CPU and RAM take care of processing? Well, all of your shaders, shiny effects, and general 3 dimensional things use texture mapping and rendering in real-time with polygons. So what does that mean? The GPU handles assigning the shaders, places, rotations, translations, and textures to vertices and geometric items so that they can move and just appear smooth. In layman's terms, GPU makes shiny, pretty. Now, it's not ALL 3D. (I mean 3d as in 3 dimensional flat, not what you see in movies) Most GPU's these days utilize 2D acceleration to increase frame buffers. This is going out of style thanks to AMD, who emulate this process. Your frame rate on all games relies on this little chip, or in some cases this enormous box. There are more than one type of GPU, notably laptops and desktops utilize different ones, which causes for some issues in frame rates. Laptops tend to have them completely soldered in, which means you CAN'T change it, and there is hardly any power to the piece. In these cases, if the CPU/Motherboard dies, you're screwed. GPU's have their own set of RAM usually boxed in. This is GRAPHICS ram, and only used for the GPU. We'll call that the GPU cache. Same thing as ram, but only for the GPU.
Cooling: Pretty easy to figure out. Cooling is what keeps your computer cool. Most computers have fans, some are submerged in mineral oil, and some have liquid cooling kits to pump cold liquid through tubes into the CPU and keep it cool. The warmer your PC runs, the greater chance of it overheating. Most CPU parts have designated safety levels for temperature that should always be monitored. While it's okay for your fans to kick up a bit (actually it's good to tax the system a little and get some dust out!) you don't want to have it run above your designated safety temperatures. On my desktop I use Speedfan to monitor this.
Power: All computers have a power unit. When building your own, you want to take into account how much power you'll need to run the system. You want to be VERY CAREFUL about how much power goes in. I'm not going to teach you to build a computer, but it's a notable thing.
Hard Disk: Aka Where all your files are stored! Hard Disks are the number one thing to fail in computers, which is why even laptops that are newer have more than one drive to store your lovely files. There are many different kinds these days. You have your HDD, which is a typical pin-on-disc reader. This kind utilizes magnetic heads to read your data, the speed of it determined by RPM. RPM is rotations per minute that the spindle winds the platter (aka the disk inside). The higher the RPM, the faster your data reads. The other kind of data drive is a Solid State Drive. These run MUCH higher in price, but have less of an inclination to fail. They do not use the spindle build. Instead, it uses an integrated storage board. It's aaaaall electronic. Some may use a capacitor and their own ram as well. It's complicated, but it is MUCH faster.
PCI: Peripher Component Interconnect. This is where your hardware devices are plugged into your computer. There are a bunch of different types, mostly these days PCI-E, or PCI Express. If you have a network card, you plug it in here.
Network Card: The wireless, or wired, or both. This is what ables you to get internet on your device. Most have wireless capabilities but not all of them do. Be sure to know that before a purchase.
Sound Card: Another PCI pluggable. This sends all your audio signals. If you're looking at a desktop, you'll need one. Laptops always have them integrated. Keep in mind it doesn't PLAY the sound, but it gives you the option to plug in your speakers so that you can hear what your computer is screaming at you. Usually, they have 7-8 ports. Pink is your line-in or microphone, light blue, lime green, brown, black, and orange are all of your speaker channels, and then you can have a gold one for a Game port or MIDI. Optional on most of them is Optical. Optical is a fibre wire cable that carries sound data from all channels and capable of outputting to 7.1 channels of sound in one nifty device. Not really needed for most things, but it sounds awesome. Your only sound input will usually be your line-in.
USB: Cmon, everyone knows what a USB is. We use them to charge our phones, plug in our controllers, and even input new gaming devices. On newer devices there is the USB 3.0, which transfers data at a greatly increased rate. USB's are all about speedy performance, and are simply for transferring data from item to pc. Firewire is the same, as is thunder wire or whatever apple is calling their junk these days. While I could go on for hours about how it works, you could easily look up the wiki article. You don't need to know how a USB works unless you're super curious. When deciding on a computer make sure you have enough for anything you may need. I tend to like having at least 4 that are open at all times.
Other PCI: Tv tuners, disc controllers, some Video cards, etc etc etc, all of these are PCI plugs. Research what you want if looking into a desktop so you know what motherboard you need to utilize all of your things.
Overclocking: Don't do this if you don't know what you're doing. This can lead you to a cycle of BSOD's. Overclocking is upping the clocking power of your CPU with the benefit of making things faster. It's dangerous and has caused many computers to overheat.
I should change my title to Megathreader.
Alright, so you've got some money, congratulations! You have decided that you're going to invest in a computer. Again, congratulations! Before you make that investment, let's talk about what you need to know about the computer world.
Terms you should know:
Motherboard: Otherwise known as logic board on Mac computers, this is the unit everything plugs into. Your RAM, CPU, and other little doo-hickeys will all rest in this board. They are very fragile, and if they fail can quite literally blow up in your face.
CPU: Central processing unit. The CPU is the little chip that holds your processor. It plugs into the motherboard and does all the little math wizardry you need to get your computer to run calculator and notepad. CPU's are associated with a number called their Clock Signal Frequency, which is KHZ-MHZ-GHZ. This is the speed associated with your processor and tells how fast a program has the capability to run in easy terms. We call that performance! Some CPU's (most nowadays) have multi-core-processing, which means that for each core, your computer has that number in KHZ-MHZ-GHZ to work with. This increases how much a computer can handle. If you're using more than one program that is CPU heavy, you can half the beating your computer takes with more than one core to handle each program. This is all automatic! On the other side, another core can take over for one that is at 100% capacity to keep your precious PC from crashing. More cores is always a good thing, but some programs don't utilize all of them.
RAM: One of the most common PC terms. While the CPU takes care of most of the work, RAM is your system's memory. RAM stores data to be accessed by the system to make what you're doing seem 'faster'. Say you're using photoshop and doing some painting. RAM is what stores the stroke of the brush and feeds it to the CPU to be processed and returned so that it appears without lag. The more RAM you have, the quicker the response. While more RAM can speed up a computer, it also is not an end-all solution. Some OS types can't read a certain amount of RAM, so keep that in mind. There are also RAM threads that optimize ram speeds, but that's more of an advanced strategy.
GPU: Yeah, you guys know what this is. Graphics processing, aka your Graphics card. It's also referred to as VPU, so don't get all confused. So what does this do if the CPU and RAM take care of processing? Well, all of your shaders, shiny effects, and general 3 dimensional things use texture mapping and rendering in real-time with polygons. So what does that mean? The GPU handles assigning the shaders, places, rotations, translations, and textures to vertices and geometric items so that they can move and just appear smooth. In layman's terms, GPU makes shiny, pretty. Now, it's not ALL 3D. (I mean 3d as in 3 dimensional flat, not what you see in movies) Most GPU's these days utilize 2D acceleration to increase frame buffers. This is going out of style thanks to AMD, who emulate this process. Your frame rate on all games relies on this little chip, or in some cases this enormous box. There are more than one type of GPU, notably laptops and desktops utilize different ones, which causes for some issues in frame rates. Laptops tend to have them completely soldered in, which means you CAN'T change it, and there is hardly any power to the piece. In these cases, if the CPU/Motherboard dies, you're screwed. GPU's have their own set of RAM usually boxed in. This is GRAPHICS ram, and only used for the GPU. We'll call that the GPU cache. Same thing as ram, but only for the GPU.
Cooling: Pretty easy to figure out. Cooling is what keeps your computer cool. Most computers have fans, some are submerged in mineral oil, and some have liquid cooling kits to pump cold liquid through tubes into the CPU and keep it cool. The warmer your PC runs, the greater chance of it overheating. Most CPU parts have designated safety levels for temperature that should always be monitored. While it's okay for your fans to kick up a bit (actually it's good to tax the system a little and get some dust out!) you don't want to have it run above your designated safety temperatures. On my desktop I use Speedfan to monitor this.
Power: All computers have a power unit. When building your own, you want to take into account how much power you'll need to run the system. You want to be VERY CAREFUL about how much power goes in. I'm not going to teach you to build a computer, but it's a notable thing.
Hard Disk: Aka Where all your files are stored! Hard Disks are the number one thing to fail in computers, which is why even laptops that are newer have more than one drive to store your lovely files. There are many different kinds these days. You have your HDD, which is a typical pin-on-disc reader. This kind utilizes magnetic heads to read your data, the speed of it determined by RPM. RPM is rotations per minute that the spindle winds the platter (aka the disk inside). The higher the RPM, the faster your data reads. The other kind of data drive is a Solid State Drive. These run MUCH higher in price, but have less of an inclination to fail. They do not use the spindle build. Instead, it uses an integrated storage board. It's aaaaall electronic. Some may use a capacitor and their own ram as well. It's complicated, but it is MUCH faster.
PCI: Peripher Component Interconnect. This is where your hardware devices are plugged into your computer. There are a bunch of different types, mostly these days PCI-E, or PCI Express. If you have a network card, you plug it in here.
Network Card: The wireless, or wired, or both. This is what ables you to get internet on your device. Most have wireless capabilities but not all of them do. Be sure to know that before a purchase.
Sound Card: Another PCI pluggable. This sends all your audio signals. If you're looking at a desktop, you'll need one. Laptops always have them integrated. Keep in mind it doesn't PLAY the sound, but it gives you the option to plug in your speakers so that you can hear what your computer is screaming at you. Usually, they have 7-8 ports. Pink is your line-in or microphone, light blue, lime green, brown, black, and orange are all of your speaker channels, and then you can have a gold one for a Game port or MIDI. Optional on most of them is Optical. Optical is a fibre wire cable that carries sound data from all channels and capable of outputting to 7.1 channels of sound in one nifty device. Not really needed for most things, but it sounds awesome. Your only sound input will usually be your line-in.
USB: Cmon, everyone knows what a USB is. We use them to charge our phones, plug in our controllers, and even input new gaming devices. On newer devices there is the USB 3.0, which transfers data at a greatly increased rate. USB's are all about speedy performance, and are simply for transferring data from item to pc. Firewire is the same, as is thunder wire or whatever apple is calling their junk these days. While I could go on for hours about how it works, you could easily look up the wiki article. You don't need to know how a USB works unless you're super curious. When deciding on a computer make sure you have enough for anything you may need. I tend to like having at least 4 that are open at all times.
Other PCI: Tv tuners, disc controllers, some Video cards, etc etc etc, all of these are PCI plugs. Research what you want if looking into a desktop so you know what motherboard you need to utilize all of your things.
Overclocking: Don't do this if you don't know what you're doing. This can lead you to a cycle of BSOD's. Overclocking is upping the clocking power of your CPU with the benefit of making things faster. It's dangerous and has caused many computers to overheat.
