RAM is usually fast, temporary memory where data is saved until removed or
power is turned off on the computer (White 43). “A hard drive is the workaholic
of a PC system.”(White 87)) It is based on using magnetic plates; spinning at
extreme speeds up to 7,200 rotations a minute, which are 120 spins every second.
Even with extreme speed and microscopic accuracy modern hard drives are unlikely
to fail. The hard disk is a combination of electronic and mechanical portions,
which makes it the one of the slowest parts of the computer (White 87). A
graphic card is usually plugged into one of the expansion slots, which are
metallic contacts on the motherboard (White 119). One of the most common
expansion slots is PCI – peripheral components interconnect. PCI are most
commenly white slots used to attach a graphic or sound card, also modem or
network card (White 120). Latest expansion slot used for graphic cards only is
AGP – accelerated graphic port, which is faster than PCI (White 121). Both PCI
and AGP based adapters use SVGA – super video graphics array as a modern
standard, which added new capabilities, such as higher resolution and color
depth to the previous VGA interface. Super VGA allows as many as 16 million
colors also called 32-bit color, or true color(Stephen 1253). There are three
major factors defining the speed of a graphic adapter, overall performance
depends on the chipset speed, performance and capacity of graphic random access
memory and the expansion slot architecture (Stephen 1258).
One of the other factors defining speed of a video adapter is the
software driver. “Even the finest accelerator board hardware can bog-down when
run with careless, loosely written code”(Stephen 1259). Graphic cards have their
own BIOS software which is firmware, or permanently recorded in a memory device
such as ROM – read only memory, and usually can not be modified. Graphic card is
actually a device what enables visualizing of data on the monitor’s screen.
Graphic adapter sends signals to the monitor. The monitor uses glowing dots of
red, green, and blue rays, which then blend into millions of colors. The display
dots are called pixels –picture element, also the smallest area of the monitor’s
screen. Pixels are on/off to create and image, the graphic adapter sends the
information about position and color of pixels in form of a bitmap. Bitmaps are
also the most common form of computer graphics (White 143). The CD-ROM –compact
disk read only memory became standard equipment in personal computer systems in
late 1980’s. Data is retrieved from a compact disk by using a laser beam without
any physical contact between the disk and the drive. No physical contact makes
compact disks long lasting data storage media (White 205). Since early 1990s the
CD-R - compact disk recorder became more reliable for home users. CD-R allows
one to record CD’s on a home personal computer. The newer technology is CD-RW
compact disk rewriteable, which enables rewriting CD’s after it is recorded
(White 139). The latest way to store very large amount of data are DVD-digital
versatile disk, which allows to store up to thirteen times more data than a CD.
DVDs are usually used for movies because of their large capacity, and digital
quality sound and picture(White 205). Another common component of the personal
computer is a modem. A modem works as a connection between digital and analog
signals. The modem itself is an analog device. It uses analog telephone lines
which were invented before any digital device. Modern 56K modems combine both
analog, and digital transfer, making it perform better than analog – only
devices. Newer technology in data transfer are DSL - digital subscriber line,
satellite, and cable. All of those are generally faster, but a more expensive
way to connect to the Internet (White 171). A sound card is one the devices that
has been overlooked in early systems, besides a simple speaker the early PCs
were mute. Due to the of increasing popularity of computer games, designers
developed a soundboard, which was able to read and reproduce sound data recorded
in separate files. Modern soundboards allow users to enjoy realistic
three-dimensional sound surrounding a person while playing computer games
(Stephen 1187). To build a PC providing maximal gaming performance, one of the
most important things to consider is choosing a CPU. There are several choices
meeting individual needs, and purposes.
