Computer Upgrade Essay Example For Students

Computer Upgrade Essay With increasing popularity of computer games, and multimedia home PC users oftenneed an unexpensive computer system upgrade. By building a custom computer oneis able to combine componenets, and operating system to provide maximal gamingperformance. Computers are often called number manipulators, because of theirability to run millions of mathematical operations per second (White 43). Computers use binary system of numbers, which allows them to operate system ofmicroscopic switches called transistors found inside of computer chips. Binarysystem is defined as counting system that uses two digits one and zero (Gookin49). A transistor is a basic building block of microchips; transistors arecombined in formations called logic gates (White 39). Transistor can onlycreate binary information: one if current passes through or zero if current doesnot, to work with transistors(White 39). Computer software uses Booleanlogic, which is based on selecting true or false values used in computerprogramming (White 39). All personal computers have BIOS, which is an acronymfor Basic Input Output System. The BIOS runs every time the computer is started,and it basically tells the computer how to act (White 19). The BIOS is a part ofthe boot up process, or a complex set of operations checking hardware thatcomponents are working properly. Besides BIOS and several other operations thereis poweron self-test POST being ran. POST test runs at the start up, and ifit finds an error, it sends a warning message (White 5). Central processing unitCPU is the most important part of the personal computer, all othercomponents work as a bridge to CPU (White 59). The speed of the processor isusually defined by using units called megahertz (MHz, also million frequencywaves per second). CPUs are generally divided into two categories- CISC andRISC. CISC complex instruction set computing, uses many small instructionsto carry out a single operations. CISC is a standard in todays processors. RISC reduced instruction set computing, uses less complicated instructionswith simpler design. RISC microprocessors are cheaper, they produce less heat,and they are generally smaller in size compared to CISC. With less heat andsmaller size RISC processors have great advantage in reaching higher frequencieswith less danger of overheating. The major disadvantage and also reason why RISCmicroprocessors are not widely used, is less compatibility with availablesoftware. The earlier programs were written for CISC chips. In order to reachmaximal speed, and compatibility the major manufacturers of microprocessors suchas Intel, use some advantages of RISC technology, to improve the performance oftheir CISC compatible microprocessors (White 55). Computer microprocessor is themost important part of the PC, but it can not work by it self. One of the fewprimary components is BUS, also called a highway of the computer. BUS transportsdata among the processor, random access memory, and hard disk. Sp eed of the BUSdepends on the type of motherboard where it is installed (White 119). Randomaccess memory- RAM is also attached to the motherboard- base of all thecomponents, but unlike BUS, RAM can be easily removed and changed. Random accessmemory works as a staging area for the central processing unit (White 43). Capacity of random access memory is very important for the performance of acomputer. In case there is not enough RAM the software can create space on thehard drive to be used as temporary operating memory (White 31). Random meansthat any part of the memory can be accessed at any time, it is not necessary toread all of the memory to find one location. RAM is usually fast, temporarymemory 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)) Itis based on using magnetic plates; spinning at extreme speeds up to 7,200rotations a minute, which are 120 spins every second. Even with extreme speedand microscopic accuracy modern hard drives are unlikely to fail. The hard diskis a combination of electronic and mechanical portions, which makes it the oneof the slowest parts of the computer (White 87). A graphic card is usuallyplugged into one of the expansion slots, which are metallic contacts on themotherbo ard (White 119). One of the most common expansion slots is PCI peripheral components interconnect. PCI are most commenly white slots used toattach a graphic or sound card, also modem or network card (White 120). Latestexpansion 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 SVGAsuper video graphics array as a modern standard, which added newcapabilities, such as higher resolution and color depth to the previous VGAinterface. Super VGA allows as many as 16 million colors also called 32-bitcolor, or true color(Stephen 1253). There are three major factors defining thespeed of a graphic adapter, overall performance depends on the chipset speed,performance and capacity of graphic random access memory and the expansion slotarchitecture (Stephen 1258). One of the other factors defining speed of a videoadapter is the software driver. Even the finest accelerator board hardwarecan bog-down when run wit h careless, loosely written code(Stephen 1259). Pearl Harbor EssayIts impressive test results in Glide interface based games are unbeatable by anyother graphic card, just because 3Dfx is the only manufacturer using Glideinterfacing. Using other interfaces such as Open GL or Direct 3D the Voodoo 33500 looses speed compare to TNT 2 Ultra based accelerators. One of the featuresof the high priced Voodoo3 3500 is a TV tuner that allows user to watchtelevision on computers monitor (Case 49) . Voodoo 3 supports all threeinterfaces- Open GL, Glide, and Direct 3D which makes it one of the fastest, andmost compatible graphic cards available. Only sixteen megabytes of graphicmemory does not allow Voodoo3 to run true color, three dimensional scenes inhigh resolutions, and that is what Nvidia TNT 2 Ultra does (Case 204). Severalgraphic card manufacturers use TNT 2 Ultra chipset. Well known, and one of thelargest is Diamond Multimedia producing Viper 770 Ultra, using previouslymentioned TNT 2 Ultra chipset. Viper 770 is a very fast graphic ac celerator withimplemented thirty-two megabytes of graphic memory, allowing true coloring inhigh resolutions. Retail version of the Viper includes a large software bundlewith several valuable games. Another feature is an excellent toolbar that allowsthe user to tweak up a lot of details improving performance, such as anoverclocking utility (Case 99). After all the hardware parts are assembled it istime to install the most important software, the operating system. The computeris unable to do anything unless it is running an operating system, which is abasic type of software that acts as a supervisor for all the applications (White9). Although the operating system is the most important software it is notincluded in computers, because of the need to upgrades. Operating system isloaded from hard drive to the random access memory before the CPU can performany operations. Operating systems were originally created to handlecommunication with other drives, because without an operating system programmerswould have to invent software with instructions to run the hardware (White 19). Currently the most popular operating system is Microsoft Windows 98 SecondEdition. One of the new features of the Windows OS is an upgraded version of USB-universal serial bus support, which allows to use USB compatible modems. Thefeature improvement since Windows 95 includes for example Disk DefragmentationOptimization Wizard, using the process of disk defragmentation to increase thespeed of the most frequently used applications (Stephen 53) The newest Microsoftoperating system Windows 2000 is still available only in beta test version. Impressive new features such as very complex plug and play detection devices, orperformance improvements due using the newest drivers are only few of the newimplementations (Cleveland 75). Todays reality like games require high-endPCs, sold for thousands of dollars. By building a custom computer a user isreally able to tweak up the best performance for the best price. Cheaper, custombuilt PC allows user to play any of the hundreds of games available, and reachthe best frame rates.