Cmos Memory

Configuration settings of a computer such as storage capacity, memory capacity (RAM), and display configurations also need to be stored permanently. This information is stored in CMOS (complementary metal oxide semiconductor) memory. The CMOS chip requires very little electrical power to hold data. It can be powered by a small battery on the motherboard, or packaged with the chip. The battery maintains the data on the CMOS when the computer is turned off.

BUS

A bus is a pathway through which data is transferred from one part of a computer to another. It consists of the data bus and the address bus. The data bus transfers the data itself, while the address bus transfers information about where the data is to go. Every bus has a width, a speed, and a transfer rate. The width, also called the word size, of a bus is measured in bits. An 8-bit bus has eight transfer pathways that are one bit wide, meaning eight bits of data may be transferred simultaneously. The larger the word size, the more data a bus can transfer at one time. A bus with a 64-bit word size can transfer eight times more data a second than can an 8-bit bus operating at the same speed.

The speed of a bus is measured in hertz (Hz), or cycles per second.

Data compression

In signal processing, data compression, source coding, or bit-rate reduction involves encoding information using fewer bits than the original representation. Compression can be either lossy or lossless. Lossless compression reduces bits by identifying and eliminating statistical redundancy. No information is lost in lossless compression. Lossy compression reduces bits by removing unnecessary or less important information. The process of reducing the size of a data file is referred to as data compression. In the context of data transmission, it is called source coding (encoding done at the source of the data before it is stored or transmitted) in opposition to channel coding.

Question 1. Choosing Microprocessors

The following processors are made by Intel®:

A. Intel® Core™ 2 Q6600 Quad-Core (about 20000 tg) Processor speed: 2.4 GHz Level 2 cache: 8MB System bus: 1066 MHz Number of cores: 4

B. Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T5450 (about 2000tg) Processor speed: 1.66GHz Level 2 cache: 2MB System bus: 667 MHz

C. Intel® Celeron® 420 (about 4800tg) Processor speed: 1.6 GHz Level 2 cache: 512KB System bus: 800 MHz

You may find the following resources useful:

• Intel® Processor Numbers

• Tom's Hardware

a. List the processors described above by their price range (from the cheapest to the most expensive). C>B>A

b. List the processors described above by their performance (from the best to the worst).

A>B>C

c. Which of the above processors would be the fastest when used for multi-media production and multi-tasking (running 10 or more applications at the same time)?

A

Question 2. Computer Purchase

Let us assume that you are purchasing a new computer for a specific usage. You need to choose a computer from various available configurations.

Listed below are four different usage cases of a computer (a-d). For each usage case, identify components of the computer configuration that are most important to consider. Explain your answers.

Components to be considered include (but are not limited to):

• Monitor size/resolution

• Graphics card/video card

• Storage devices (for example, DVD-ROM)

• Memory (RAM, cache, and hard disk)

• Disk controller interfaces (ATA, EIDE)

For example, if a computer is going to be used for viewing movies, a DVD-ROM drive is needed since movies are available as CDs and now increasingly as DVDs. A large monitor (about 19”) that supports high resolutions and a video card will also be necessary to enjoy the movie.

• a. Simultaneously running a number of programs (Memory (RAM, cache, and hard disk, Graphics card/video card) Because: If I haven’t limit on money, I will buy the best video card( like a Nvidia GTX 1080, GTX 980 TI SLI) and if I buy a good vide card, I won’t care about resolution of monitor). Running a number of programs depend on RAM.

• b. Running a speed-critical application (Graphics card/video card because: video card converts information into graphic information) Hard disk, because: hard disk has two function: read and write. And speed of application depends on hard disk.)

• c. Storing and retrieving huge volumes of data ( Memory (RAM, cache, and hard disk) because: If speak about huge volumes of data, we will consider Memory. Storage devices (for example, DVD-ROM) Because: function of storage devices is store data)

d. Purchasing a basic configuration, to be upgraded later as needed (motherboard because: hard disk( SATA) , video card (PCI-Express)) processor and RAM have different connectors(socket)