 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) IDESCSISATA EIDEWide SCSInewest type Fast ATAFast SCSIless susceptible to interference ATAUltra Widedata transfer rate (300 MBps) close to that of etc.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 DVD 20 th C. Fox Warner Brothers Walt Disney Pictures New Line Cinemas MGM Universal Studios Warner Brothers HBO * Paramount Pictures * DreamWorks Animation Apple MS

 USB & FireWire USB 1.1 => 12 MbpsFireWire 400 => 400 Mbps USB 2.0 => 480 MbpsFireWire 800 => 800 Mbps FireWire 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

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

PlatformBluetooth Wi-Fi / EthernetBattery Card readersSpeakers Software & OS Drive bays DisplayPrinter Surge protector Router External hard driveWarranty Flash drive, USB drive