Building Your Own PC - Part 1
Since building your own PC is a broad subject, we've separated it into three parts. This first part can be considered as an introduction to various parts that make up every PC. Since there's a lot of them, this part is quite long. Most information contain in this part is very basic, so most of you already familiar with PC peripherals and internals can skip this part and go on to Part 2.A Little Background
Before we begin, let's take a look inside your PC or more accurately, inside your CPU. After all, if we're planning to muck around inside it, we should know at least what the components / parts are and what they look like. Let's begin with the basics.Processors
The brain of the PC, processors have come a long way since the early 80's. First generation PCs used a 4 MHz processor and just 640 KBs of RAM (Random Access Memory). Now, we're reaching speeds up to 4 GHz and memory up to 4 GBs. That's a thousand time faster and nearly eight thousand times larger.Today, there are two major manufacturers of PC processors: AMD and Intel. There are other manufacturers, but they (VIA and Transmeta) only cover a small percentage of the PC market. This includes both desktop and notebook PCs to servers and workstations. For the sake of brevity, we'll limit our discussion to desktop processors by AMD and Intel.
Sockets
While basically they handle the same task, AMD and Intel use different designs and shapes for their processors. Thus their processor require different sockets. So, you couldn't put an AMD processor in a motherboard built for Intel processors and vice versa. Currently, Intel uses two sockets for their desktop processors: socket 478 and 775, while AMD uses socket 462 (otherwise known as socket A), socket 754 and socket 939. These guys sure like their sockets and numbers, huh? These numbers are actually the number of connectors (in the form of pins or pads) the processors have. Again, you could only use a socket 754 processor motherboard equipped with a socket 754 and nowhere else. That goes for every processor and their respective socket. Why the reasons for many sockets or connectors? Well, as processor becomes faster and faster, they need more connectors - either for electricity or data. Thankfully, there will be no changes in sockets for the next two or three years (at least we hope so).Socket 462 / A from AMD and socket 478 from Intel are the oldest of the bunch. Right now, these sockets are being replaced by newer ones, such as socket 754 / 939 for AMD processors and socket 775 for Intel processors. So if you're concerned about future upgrades and don't want to change your motherboard, it's best to pick processors with the newer sockets, either socket 939 for AMD and 775 for Intel. Unfortunately, these processors are not that much faster than the old ones. So for some of us, it makes much more sense choosing the old ones for now since they're cheaper and already fast enough for most applications. You could always upgrade both the processor and motherboard later - usually with more reasonable prices than what they're currently charging now. This is what makes choosing a processor for your PC so difficult. In times like this, I'd only recommend the newer processors (socket 939 and 775) if you're more concerned with upgrades - basically if you use your PC for games. Those using their PC for office work and multimedia should go for the least expensive option - socket 462 / A or 478. Upgrading your processor won't do much anyway.
Performance: Not Just Pure Speed
If you look at the processors available today regardless of sockets, you'll see that they also come on different speeds. These speeds range from 2 to 4 GHz (or equivalent). Contrary to what most people believe, speed is not the only factor indicating processor's performance. If it is, a 4 GHz processor should be twice as fast as a 2 GHz processor. This is not the case. When we talk about performance, we're not talking about the speed of the processor, but the speed at which the processor process data. Remember that data also have to be sent back and forth between the processor and other components. With faster data transfer, the processor will more likely reach its optimal performance. This concept is what we call bandwidth. There are also internal differences between processors. Some processors process more data per MHz at the cost of speed, while some works at a higher speed (MHz) at the cost of processing power (less data processed).Let's take a deeper look inside a processor and see what determine its performance. We will use an analogy: a car's engine. Some engines use high RPM with four cylinders to deliver power, while some use low RPM with six or even eight cylinders. Fuel economy aside, when working at the same RPM, the six / eight cylinder engine will deliver more power than the four cylinder engine. Processor work in a similar manner. AMD's engineers use a design for their Athlon processor with three, big pipelines (think of this as the cylinders for your car's engine), while Intel uses two big pipelines and one small one. This doesn't mean Intel's engineers are dumb. On the contrary they're very smart and they explicitly choose to do so. Why? The Pentium 4 was made to reach high clock speeds. Using less big pipelines means they could free up the space to make them longer and longer pipelines means higher speed - MHz. This is an overly simplistic example, but not that far from the truth. This example show how the two manufacturers use different approach and design for their processor. AMD is more concerned with doing more per cycle, while Intel is going for more cycle at the expense of fewer instructions per cycle. Congratulations, you've just learn one of the most important aspects of processor performance: IPC (Instructions per Cycle), which literally means how much instructions can be done per cycle (1 Hz).
Now look at the benchmarks, an AMD Athlon 64 processor working at 1,8 GHz could process data as fast or faster than an Intel Pentium 4 processor working at 3 GHz. That particular AMD processor is said to be 'equivalent' to that Intel processor. Remember this fact when you're contemplating whether to buy an AMD processor or an Intel processor. As of 2005, both AMD and Intel use a name scheme for their processors that omits the processor's speed. AMD have been using this scheme for awhile (since 2002 with their Athlon XP processor).
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