Graphics

AGP (Accelerated Graphics Port): A high-speed port meant fortaking a graphics card. It’s available in most new motherboards. The defaultAGP speed is 66 MHz, unlike the older PCI bus that runs at 33 MHz. AGP also hasthe advantage of direct access to system memory. AGP 4X—the fastest AGP bustoday—provides a bandwidth of 1.07 GB/sec in comparison to 133 MB/sec providedby a PCI bus.

Anti-aliasing: A common feature in most graphics cards today.The image that you see on your monitor is made up of pixels, which are nothingbut tiny dots. When curves are displayed on a computer monitor, they oftenappear jagged, as the pixels that make up the curves are not themselves curved.With anti-aliasing, pixels along the curve are also given some color. This makestext blurry, but strangely enough, more readable.

GPU (Graphics Processing Unit): This is a microprocessorspecifically designed for processing 3D graphics data. This term was firstcoined by nVIDIA to describe their GeForce 256 chip. All major graphics-cardmanufacturers are incorporating this chip into their models.

RAMDAC (Random Access Memory Digital-to-Analog Converter):This microchip is basically a digital to analog converter that sits on agraphics card. Your monitor accepts analog signals to draw whatever you see onyour screen. However, the PC
only produces digital signals. The RAMDAC chip translates these digital signalsinto analog signals that the monitor can understand. Faster RAMDAC gives higherscreen refresh rates, leading to fewer flickers on your monitor screen.

Z-buffer: The Z-buffer helps in creating 3D images on yourscreen. It’s a memory area on a graphics card that stores the Z-axiscoordinates of a 3D graphics.

Memory

Bandwidth: This is a measure of the amount of data that canbe sent over a particular cable, interface, or bus at any given point of time.

DDR (Double Data Rate) RAM: This is a new type of RAM, usedin some of the newer video cards, such as the nVIDIA GeForce. It’s expected tobecome mainstream soon, as it has twice the bandwidth of conventional SDRAM. Itdoes this by transferring data twice as fast as conventional SDRAM.

Latency: This is a measure of how long, on an average, ittakes to get a response from a component. For example, in case of RAM, it refersto how long it takes to read or write data from its storage area.

RDRAM (Rambus DRAM): This is a new kind of memory, thetechnology for which was developed by a company called Rambus, which is backedby Intel. Unlike SDRAM, which runs at 133 MHz, RDRAM can scale up to 800 MHz,thus offering greater bandwidth. It fits into what are called RIMM slots unlikeSDRAM that fits in DIMM slots. However, RDRAM is pretty expensive and is onlyavailable with some motherboards.

Hard drives

RPM (Rotations Per Minute): This is the spindle speed of ahard drive. Till now 5,400 rpm was commonly available, but recently 7,200-rpmhard drives have become entry level. Faster spin speeds improve the performanceof a PC.

SCSI (Small Computer System Interface): A high-speedinterface used by some hard disks, CD-ROM drives, scanners, etc. SCSI devicesare available in three flavors—SCSI, SCSI 2, and SCSI 3. SCSI 3, the latestone, is also referred to as Ultra SCSI. This is used in graphics applications,video editing, network servers, etc, where high-speed sustained data transfersare required.

UltraATA/UltraDMA: These terms are used interchangeably. Theyrefer to the interface of your hard drive or the technology that offers fasterdata transfer rates. The UltraATA/100 is the latest one and offers transferrates of 100 MB/sec. UltraATA/66 is the commonly-used one and supports transferrates of 66 MB/sec. Most motherboards these days support the UltraATA/66interface. So, to use this technology, hard drives and cables that connect themto the motherboard must also be UltraATA/ 66 compliant.

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