Understanding System Specifications for Computer Hardware and Software, Lecture notes of Computer System Design and Architecture

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SYSTEM

REQUIREMENTS

System Requirements

• Whenever you purchase software or hardware for your computer, you should first make sure your computer supports the system requirements.
• There are some necessary specifications for computer to use the software or hardware.
• If your computer does not meet these requirements, those software and hardware will not be able to perform tasks to satisfy user requirements.

System Specification

• Most hardware and software products have the system requirements printed on the side or bottom of the product packaging.
• When you are shopping for computer software or hardware, it is a good idea to first find out exactly what your system's specifications are and write them down on a piece of paper.
• Important information to record includes main componets(Knowladge of Previous Lectures) of a workable computer, - Operating System (i.e. Windows XP, SP 2 or Mac OS X 10.3.8) - Processor Speed (i.e. Pentium 4, 3.2 GHz or Power PC G5, 2.0 GHz) - Memory, a.k.a. RAM (i.e. 512 MB)

• Graphics Card (i.e. ATI Radeon 9800 w/ 256 MB video memory)
• Hard Disk Space (i.e. 80 GB available)
• I/O Ports (i.e. USB, Firewire, Serial, Parallel, SCSI, VGA, DVI ports)
• By recording these specifications will be able to make sure the computer supports the products you are buying.
• In terms of installation, systems’ specification is an important consideration for a computer to run and work properly for the most efficient way it could be.

System Specification

Processor Speed and Architecture

• Speed of a computer processor chip (technically " clock speed") measured in gigahertz (GHz), with the fastest modern processors that are currently running at up to 4.7GHz.
• For common computing tasks such as,
  • Web browsing
  • Sending e-mails
  • Word processing
  • Spreadsheet work any processor running at 1GHz or more perfectly sufficient.

• For applications such as video editing, 3D graphics work and (for most of the "power users") playing computer games, higher processor speeds is highly required.
• CPU performance is now increase with more than one processor.
• Also those provide an indication of a processor’s "architecture", "cache" and "front side bus (FSB) speed" in addition to its clock speed.

Processor Speed and Architecture

• In addition to clock speed and architecture, a processor cache and front side bus (FSB) speed also determine overall power of the computer.
• Cache is a form of very fast memory integrated into the processor chip, and used to store up instructions (work for the processor) so that it has to slow down as little as possible between tasks.
• Cache is measured in megabytes (MB), with low-end Celeron processors having as little as 0.25MB of cache (256KB), and high-end Itaniums having up to 24MB.
• The simple message is, the more cache the better- though high levels of cache still come at a very significant price.

Processor Speed and Architecture

• Front side bus (FSB) speed is a measure of how fast a microprocessor communicates with the motherboard.
• Again, the higher the measure the better for overall performance.
• FSB speeds currently ranging from 533MHz (still perfectly sufficient for the vast majority of applications) up to 1600 MHz.
• Number of wires on data bus determine the quantity of data that the bus can carry out at a moment.

Processor Speed and Architecture

RAM

• A computer with high capacity RAM is faster and more effectively operate.
• Computers with little RAM have to keep moving data to and from their hard disks in order to keep running.
• This tends to make computer not just slow in general, but more annoyingly intermittently sluggish.
• RAM is measured in megabytes (MB) and gigabytes (GB), as detailed on the storage page.

RAM

• RAM capacity of a computer depends on the software it is required to run effectively.
• A computer running Windows XP will usually function quite happily with 1GB of RAM, whereas twice this amount (ie 2GB) is the realistic minimum for computers running Windows 7.

• Any form of modern computer graphics system can now display high-resolution color images on a standard-sized display screen.
• The more sophisticated graphics cards now determines how well a computer can handle the playback of high definition video, as well as the speed and quality at which 3D scenes can be rendered.
• Another key feature of separate graphics cards is that most of them now allow more than one display screen to be connected to a computer. Others also permit the recording of video.

Graphics system

• Adding a new graphics card to a computer with onboard graphics is also a very easy upgrade if required in the future.
• But separate graphics cards consume quite a lot of electricity and create quite a lot of heat and noise
• So as a basic rule, unless a computer is going to be used to handle 3D graphics or to undertake a significant volume of video editing or recording onboard graphics are not use.

Graphics system

Key Factors of Hard Disk Speed

Rotational velocity of the physical disk itself

• This can currently be 4200, 5400, 7200, 10000 or 15000 rpm (revolutions per minute).
• The faster the disk spins, the quicker data can be read from or written to it, hence the faster the disk the better (although faster disks consumer more power, make more noise, and generate more heat).
• Most desktop hard disks run at either 5400 or 7200 rpm, whilst most laptop hard disks run at 4200 or 5400.

The interface used to connect hard disk to the computer motherboard

• Three types of interfaces exist
  • Serial Advance Technology Attachment (SATA) - The most modern and now pretty much the norm on new PCs
  • Integrated Device Electronics (IDE) (also known as UDMA) – A slower and older form of interface
  • SCSI - Happens to be the oldest but in it most modern variant is still the fastest disk interface standard

Key Factors of Hard Disk Speed