1. Input Devices
2. The Display
3. Software Applications
4. The Operating System
5. The File System
6. Memory
7. The Network Environment
8. The Internet
9. Search Skills
10. Computer Specifications (Hardware Overview)

Periodically throughout our journey of being a computer user we must evaluate whether to buy a new computer or to attempt an upgrade of some kind. The question of what kind of computer to buy, how much to spend, and what strategy to use to get it is endless and unanswerrable in absolute terms. Simply put, everything is changing. In order to make sound decisions as novice consumers we need to understand the basics. The analogy of comparing cars and computers is sometimes a very helpful comparison. For example, we don't need to know a lot about how a car's transmission works, but it is extremely helpful to know when buying a car that there are two main types of transmission (standard and automatic).

This content is last for the simple reason that buying a computer is often the most complicated task that novice computer users do. Never mind that it is often the first. What follows is intended to provide a broad overview of hardware specifications and how to read them. Since the technology changes so rapidly, advice and wisdom from one period of time can become inaccurate very quickly. Instead, here is an overview intended to help you understand what is being communicated about computers when they are described in terms of their hardware specifications.

Other CluelessPC content has described input devices and the display. At a glance, that leaves the computer case and its contents. The case is sometimes mistakenly referred to as the "hard drive", and occasionally it is still referred to as a "CPU" or central processing unit (which is also incorrect).

The case has historically contained a power supply, floppy and optical drives, hard drive(s), a "mother" or "main" board, and any number of "cards" which may augment what the motherboard does, and the processor. As computer designs have evolved, more and more features that have traditionally been managed on cards have become integrated into the motherboards themselves. At this point it is very common to have a computer with no cards, with the display and all periferal devices connected directly to the motherboard. However, conceptually the architecture is the same whether it is contained in a single board or over several.

Motherboards are designed to work with a range of processors and types of RAM. The motherboard's features and limitations govern whether and how other subordinate components can work with the board. In this respect, it is the most important part of the computer system. Since different families of motherboards (and processors) have very different features, comparisons between them on the basis of limited specifications can be very misleading. No part is as hard to understand, difficult to compare, and important as the processor. Naturally, it is also the most expensive.

The processor (the real "CPU") is a big "chip" that is attached to the motherboard and which processes most operating system and software level activities of the computer. The processor chip is described primarily by the speed it runs at (which is the product of two factors, "clock speed" and "front-side bus" speed). The processor's speed establishes how many times per second it can go through a cycle of interpretting instructions, and which in turn establishes a (theoretical upper-limit) constraint on the speed of communications from individual devices to the operating system and software layers.

Confusingly, within the processor are several other parts which are also described in terms of their speed. Among these is the "bus" speed (always less than clock speed) which refers to an interface for moving information to and from devices such as cards, i.e. input devices, display, storage devices, etc. The computer/chip's bus speed is often used interchangably with "front side bus" which is basically a measure of the same thing, but is actually a factor of the bus speed (such as 2x).

The chip also has several "caches" integrated into it (often described as "L1" (for "level 1"), "L2" and "L3". Caches are mechanically used to transfer information. Bigger is typically better. Since video cards and sound cards (real or virtual) have evolved into processors of their own right, they also tend to be described in terms of how fast their processors go and how much RAM and/or cache they have.

Hard drives are described by how much storage they have, how fast they spin, and how much cache RAM they have.

Optical drives are typically described by the type of drive they are, how fast they transfer information. Consumer optical media have gone through several obselescences, each yeilding to larger and larger storage sizes, and trending from read-only, to write-once-read-only, to re-writable. CD-ROMs have a capacity of about 650Mb. DVD-ROMs have a capacity of about 4.7GB. Hi-density (HD) DVDs have a capacity of about 8GB. When each new media type comes out it sets a baseline for the speed of that media. Subsequent improvements to the speed of the optical devices is described as a factor of that individual baseline. Thus a "4x" DVD drive may be much faster than a "24x" CD drive. Write speed is the primary means of comparing writable optical drives.

This brings into focus how difficult it can be to compare specifications; things which seem to be identical (but which are not) may lead to spurrious conclusions. This has led to the creation of published benchmarks which strive to isolate individual system components and compare them to one another. When in doubt, read everything you can about a technology to understand the choices, and try to choose wisely.

Many companies and individuals have developed a strategy to buy on a pre-determined cycle, at a given price-point, and/or from a single vendor to simplify the shopping process. I would recommend that novices try to imitate this strategy. However, buying a computer is often like weighing whether to fix an old car or buy a replacement, where neither choice is really desirable, and either one may in fact be the most expensive.

Furthermore and in conclusion, CluelessPC is a multi-lingual web site serving a community of novices world-wide. While it may seem to an individual that there is a conventional wisdom about how to by a system and what kind of system to buy, any convention or assumption about what to spend, how to buy it, and so on breaks down as you enlarge the universe you are trying to generalize to.

What we can say for sure is that upgrading (and for that matter buying, building, installing and configuring) hardware within the case is not the purview of novices and should not be attempted outside of a specialized class or setting designed for this purpose.