PC Prattle: What is a Chipset?

Posted on September 14, 2011 by Ella

In last week’s PC Prattle we looked at the motherboard, which in turn led to mentioning chipsets. But what exactly is a chipset? In a nutshell, a chipset is a collection of integrated circuits – or chips – that are designed to work together, and as such are often sold as a single product (for example as part of a motherboard). Modern motherboards generally require far less chips that their predecessors (which used to use dozens), and it is quite common for the chipset and motherboard manufacturer to differ.

In the case of Intel Pentium microprocessors (one of the most common brands), the chipset encompasses the north bridge and south bridge, which are two specific chips on the motherboard that regulate the high speed devices (such as the main memory and graphics card) and lower speed peripheral buses (this including Ethernet and USB connections) respectively. However, on some motherboards the north and south bridges can be integrated into one big circuit.

The CPU, GPU, north bridge (NB) and south bridge (SB) on a laptop motherboard

PC Prattle: What is a Motherboard?

Posted on September 7, 2011 by Ella

A motherboard, sometimes known as a main or system board (or even shortened to “mobo” on occasion), is the central part of most home computers. Indeed, if the CPU is the brain then motherboard is the spine or nervous system (and the CPU does slot directly into it, after all). Typically motherboards feature a variety of sockets and slots into which components such as the processor and RAM are fitted. Components such as graphics cards and CD drives are also plugged into specific slots on the motherboard. Even peripherals such as your mouse, monitor and keyboard are plugged directly into the motherboard, the part of it where these ports are located positioned so that it is accessible once it is installed in a case via a special back plate.

Take care when you purchase new components for your computer. If your motherboard is old (and thus has an outdated chipset) then these newer components may not be compatible with it. In fact, it may even be cheaper to buy a whole new motherboard (and motherboard bundles are often very competitively priced).

PC Prattle: What is a CPU?

Posted on August 31, 2011 by Ella

Dual core?

A CPU is a Central Processing Unit, and as its name suggests it’s a rather important part of any computer. In fact, it is essentially your PC’s brain. The CPU is responsible for carrying out the instructions of a computer program, and is generally housed in a single chip known as a microprocessor.

CPU performance can be increased by using multi-core processors (the most common of these currently being dual and quad core). The latter are created by plugging multiple processors – or cores – into one integrated circuit. Multi-core processors generally allow your PC to do more at once, and faster.

Moore’s Law

Moore’s law was coined circa 1970 by Carver Andress Mead, a well known and highly accomplished computer scientist. The Law theorises that the number of transistors that can be affordably placed on an integrated circuit (and therefore its performance) doubles roughly every two years. Moore’s Law has thus far proved itself to be fairly and continuingly accurate, which certainly isn’t bad for a theory from all the way back in 1970!

PC Prattle: All Disks Great and Small

Posted on August 24, 2011 by Ella

These days there are a lot of different kinds of disk, and with all the acronyms that are thrown around it can be hard to keep track of them all. As such, here’s a quick summary of the key different kinds if disk you’re likely to encounter in modern home computing. Soon you’ll have no problem knowing your disks from your discs!

Floppy disk – Arguably something of a dying breed, the floppy disk has been around since the late 1960s (its name has made it the butt of many a joke ever since). A thin, flexible disk of magnetic storage medium sealed inside a rectangular plastic shell, the floppy disk’s likeness continues to grace “Save” button icons to this day.
Hard disk drive (HDD) – A data storage device that is non-volatile, meaning that it doesn’t need power in order to retain the information stored on it. All computers have at least one of these, with portable external HDDs becoming increasingly popular.
Compact Disc (CD) – Originally developed exclusively for audio storage and playback, today CD-ROMs also house software and video games. The readable part of a CD is shiny due to light diffraction caused by the tightly wound spiral track on its surface.
Digital Versatile Disc (DVD) – Most commonly used for films, like CDs DVDs can also be used to store computer software and data (although DVDs have a far larger capacity).
Blu-ray Disc (BD) – So named due to the blue laser used to read the disc (and, of course, its distinctive colour), Blu-ray discs can hold an astonishingly large amount of data. This means that they can produce high definition video and audio of unrivalled quality.

PC Prattle: What is RAM?

Posted on August 17, 2011 by Ella

Not this kind of ram.

RAM is an acronym for Random Access Memory, and is a form of computer data storage. However, this name is somewhat misleading; today modern DRAM (Dynamic Random Access Memory) is not truly random access due to it reading data in bursts. It is a kind of volatile memory, meaning that it requires power in order to maintain stored information (examples of non-volatile memory are a hard disk or flash drive). RAM quickly provides your PC with the data it needs on demand, this temporary data disappearing when no longer in use.

DRAM is the kind most commonly used in contemporary PCs, DDR3 being the latest – and fastest – generation of DRAM. DRAM stores each bit of data in a separate capacitor that is either charged or discharged (in other words representing the conventional computer-associated values of 0 of 1). As far as most people are concerned, RAM is all about speed: the more gigabytes of RAM you have, the more volatile memory your PC will have at its disposal and, as such, the faster it will run.

RAMtastic!

The future of RAM

High speed solid-state drives have been closing the performance gap between volatile and non-volatile memory since 2006. Additionally, several types of non-volatile RAM are in development, these utilising carbon nanotubes and the so-called magnetic tunnel effect (which is widely used in modern hard drive technology).