Hardware

Today in class, we talked about the three hardwares to consider when purchasing a computer: the processor, the RAM, and the hard drive. We also watched a video to be familiar with what is inside our computers.

THE PROCESSOR

The processor is the computer’s central processing unit. It is the hardware which executes instructions. The speed of a processor is measured by Hertz. From AT/XT, 286, 386, 486 and the different Pentiums back in the 90’s, we now have processors that has a speed of up to 3.70 GHz. The speed of the processor basically indicates how many instructions the processor can execute per second.

Intel 80286 Source: pipux.com

Intel i386. Source: happytrees.org

Intel i486. Source: tomshardware.com

Pentium. Source: hothardware.com

Some companies that produced processors are AMD, Intel and Cyrix.

RAM

Random Access Memory. This is the primary memory of the computer. RAMs are measured in bytes. The common RAMs these days have at least 1-2 GB of memory. The bigger the memory of the RAM, the faster the computer.  

RAM. Source: imacland.com

HARD DRIVE

The hard drive is the secondary memory of the computer. It is also measured in bytes. This is also a more reliable storage than RAM. Unlike RAM hard drives are non volatile.

Hard drive. Source: engadget.com