Learn the hardware components that make your computer work. From the monitor to the RAM, these internal and external devices power your PC and enable you to do major tasks like gaming, video editing and more.
The central processing unit (CPU) acts as the brain of your computer, solving complex algorithms and instructions at lightning speeds. Understand how different CPUs differ and how to choose the right one for your needs.
Motherboard
The motherboard is the central hub that connects your PC’s internal hardware together. It has sockets for the CPU, RAM and expansion slots that hold other components like a graphics card and Wi-Fi module.
The CPU socket holds the (removable) processor, which is the brain of your computer that processes digital instructions to make programs run. The motherboard also contains RAM slots where running programs store temporary data; this is volatile memory, meaning the information disappears when you shut down your PC.
A chip on the motherboard stores the Basic Input/Output System (BIOS) or, in newer systems, the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI). It provides firmware-level instructions and settings to initialize the hardware components and boot your operating system. The motherboard distributes power from the PSU to components like the processor and RAM, and it includes voltage regulators that keep your system safe from dangerous power fluctuations.
Processor
The central processing unit (CPU) acts like the brain of your computer, telling other hardware components what to do. Learn about different processor types, from ones that are great for everyday use to those that offer more power for heavy-duty tasks.
Identify key specifications that affect performance and cost. These include the number of cores, clock speed and memory support. Also compare technical features such as the arithmetic logic unit (ALU) that carries basic and advanced arithmetic and logic operations; the floating point unit (FPU), a specialized coprocessor that manipulates numbers more quickly than the basic microprocessor circuitry; and registers and cache memories that hold instructions and data to reduce CPU cycles.
Understand how to use software tools such as performance counters to measure and collect metrics from running kernels and applications. This enables you to optimize your system for better performance and functionality.
Graphics Card
A graphics card, or GPU (Graphics Processing Unit), is a piece of specialized hardware that processes graphical data and offloads it from the CPU (Central Processing Unit). This enables better performance in graphics-intensive applications like video games, graphic design and video editing.
A graphics card converts a binary image into one that your monitor can display. This process is demanding because 3-D images are made of a lot of straight lines that must be drawn and rasterized (filled in) quickly to maintain framerates in fast-paced games.
Dedicated graphics cards are sold by manufacturers like NVIDIA and AMD. They’re based on reference designs that nVidia or AMD release and may offer specific features like cooling and clock speeds.
RAM
The RAM (Random Access Memory) is where your computer stores the information it is currently working with. This might include apps that you are running or web pages you are looking at. It also includes any data the CPU is processing, such as a video you are watching or the data you type into a word processor.
RAM offers lightning-fast data access, but the information is volatile and gets wiped when the system shuts down. It stores electrical charge on transistors, and the storage needs to be refreshed periodically — a process called “booting.”
There are different types of volatile RAM, including SRAM and DRAM based on static or dynamic capacitors. Most modern systems use DIMM modules that can be easily removed or replaced from the motherboard for upgrading or expansion.
Hard Drive
The hard drive is the primary storage device in a PC. It stores files and programs in non-volatile memory, preserving them even when the computer is shut off.
The hardware inside a typical hard disk drive includes disc-like objects called platters. These platters contain a magnetic recording medium layered on a high-precision aluminum disk. A special actuator arm and read/write head enables the drive to scan these platters for data.
As areal density increases, more and more information can be stored on a single platter. But the physical limitations of platter and actuator arm technology limit how fast a disk can spin.
As a result, there’s a delay between when the CPU requests a file and when the first byte of that file is sent to the CPU. This delay is known as the seek time.