CPU is the “brains” of the computer

Interprets and carries out all the commands issued to it by the SW instructions

386-PIV Pentium D Pentium M Centrino Intel Core Duo Intel Core 2 Duo Celeron

1 million times faster to get items from RAM than to get them from the hard drive

Holds instructions for programs that are running; also current data; and any intermediate results

Types: DRAM

SDRAM DDR SDRAM RDRAM

SRAM MRAM VRAM SGRAM

Memory modules SIMMs DIMMs

168-pin DIMMs - -> SDRAM 184-pin DIMMs - -> DDR SDRAM 240-pin DIMMs - -> DDR2 SDRAM

RIMMs

Super fast RAM that holds the “most likely to used next” data

Permanent storage Capacity & spindle speed Interfaces (controllers)

IDE SCSI SATAEIDE Wide SCSI newest typeFast ATA Fast SCSI less susceptible to interferenceATA Ultra Wide data transfer rate (300 MBps) close to

that ofetc. Ultra 2 Wide Ultra SCSI (320 MBps)

etc. 300 MBps = 2400 Mbps compared to USB 2.0

at 480 Mbps and FireWire 800 at 800 Mbps

These 50 stacked 24”-diameter platters could have held about 2 iTunes songs. (The total capacity was 5MB.)

1X DVD drive speed = about 9X CD drive speed 1X DVD = 3.8 MBps = 1385 KBps 1X CD = 150 KBps

Blu-Ray vs HD DVD20th C. Fox Warner BrothersWalt Disney Pictures New Line CinemasMGM Universal StudiosWarner Brothers HBO

* Paramount Pictures* DreamWorks Animation

Apple MS

USB & FireWireUSB 1.1 => 12 Mbps FireWire 400 => 400 MbpsUSB 2.0 => 480 Mbps FireWire 800 => 800 Mbps

FireWire USB

USB

VGA

DVI & S-video - high quality connections which allow a pure digital signal to run to a digital flat-panel monitor

DVI

S-video

Parallel port

Serial port

802.11b: 2.4 GHz 11 Mbps 802.11a: 5.0 GHz 54 Mbps 802.11g: 2.4 GHz 54+ Mbps 802.11n: 2.4 or 5.0 GHz 108+ Mbps

Platform BluetoothWi-Fi / Ethernet BatteryCard readers SpeakersSoftware & OS Drive baysDisplay PrinterSurge protector Router

External hard drive WarrantyFlash drive, USB drive