How to find Maxi m support of ram, and inch of case in newegg
- Thread starter vaironl
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vaironl
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. USA , But is neweegg good for this?
codeman0013
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Newegg is a great place. You can also use tigerdirect or circuitcity.com they both have great deals but in the past 5 years all of my hardware has come from newegg.com
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vaironl
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Well guys all of you thanks for the help.
I will be trying to get ahead on computer hardware since i want to do similar stuff , but since im in highschool i can;t plan for much ( I guess) opinions on that?
codeman0013
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Newegg would probably be the best bet then. If you have a paypal account you can use that to pay on newegg.com
Aastii
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1. If newegg doesn't list the dimensions (almost always does), the manufacturer's website should tell you. Just google their names (Corsair, Cooler Master, Antec, NZXT etc, whatever the manufactuerer happens to be) and search their product pages
2. The maximum amount of memory is dictated by 2 things in modern systems - The motherboard and the processor. The motherboard because of how many DIMM slots it has and the processor because all current processors have the memory controller (the "thing" which controls the amount/speed of memory) on the chip itself. As a general rule, any current motherboard can have up to 4GB memory in each DIMM slot maximum, so 16GB on AM3 boards, 16GB on 1156 boards, 24GB on 1366 boards.
3. If it makes it easier, imagine a quad core as 4 seperate processors, rather than a single one. That is essentially what it is. In very simplified terms, a core is the lowest you can go, all processing is done on the core, so if you have 1 core, you can only put through a single instruction at a time, you have dual core you can put through 2, you have a quad core you can put through 4, etc. When we say a quad core CPU, that means there are 4 of these cores on a single die. A die is the block of silicon that all of the circuitry goes on. That is simplified, but to explain everything would require several posts and a lot of time, you are better off just accepting that for now, and if you want to find out exactly how all the circuitry works and what an ALU and FPU and accumulator and instruction sets and everything else in a CPU and computer system are, read up on it, I would recommend a book called The Elements of Computing Systems.
How a dual core is generally better than a single core processor and a tri core generally better than dual core and quad generally better than tri core is like so:
Imagine a building site. All the structure is up, but no bricks are layed. There is 1 pile of bricks for each builder, and each builder can carry and lay 1 brick at a time. If you have a single person laying the bricks, it will take longer than 2, which will take longer than 3, which will take longer than 4 and so on. This is the same in computers. If you have 1 core performing a task, it will take more time than 2, which will take more time than 3 etc etc. However, there are limitations on that, which is why I said before this that more cores is generally faster.
Imagine on the same building site to get to the building you must go down a narrow corridor that is only wide enough for a single personw ith their one brick. Even if you have 100 bricklayers, it would take the exact same amount of time to build that building as it would take 1 person. In computer terms, this is called a single threaded application - the program is designed to run on only a single core.
If we widen the corridor so now 2 people at a time can walk up and down it with their bricks, it will take half the time to build the building. In computer terms, this is called a multi-threaded application - the program is designed to work with more than 1 core at a time. The corridor can be made as wide as the builders like, just like the program can be made to utilise as many cores as the programmer would like it to.
Imagine now that there are 2 buildings to be built, each with a narrow corridor that can only allow 1 builder with 1 brick to walk down at a time. With 1 builder, it would be very slow, with 2 builders, 1 could work on each building, effectively halving the time it would take, with 3 or more builders, it wouldn't make a difference to the time it took with 2 builders. In computer terms, this is what happens if you have 2 single-threaded applications running on a multi-core processor. 1 core can work on each program, halfing the time it takes for processing to occur, and spreading the load. This is where, even if you only use single threaded applications, like most office programs, web browsers, simple games, etc are, you can still take advantage of multi-core processors. This is why your dear old mother who only uses her computer to check her emails, type up a letter and listen to her favourite songs can benefit from a dual core processor - she can be listening to Black Sabbeth whilst she sends an email to your auntie, giving each program 1 core to work with, speeding up the process.
This can be utilised by someone with more resource heavy needs too. Imagine someone who plays WoW on a quad core processor. They can have what is a multi-threaded game in windowed mode, in the middle of a raid with their favourite songs on in the background, whilst on wowwiki looking up loot tables for the next boss. 1 thread for the internet with wowwiki, 1 for their music, 2 for WoW.
Now, again, imagine there are 2 buildings to be build, only this time no corridors, but 1 building twice as big as the other. With 1 builder, he would do 1 building, then the other. With 2, 1 would go to each building, with 3, 1 would go to the smaller building whilst the other 2 are doing the larger one, as this will mean that each job is finished in the same ammount of time, the first building takes x amount of time, as does the second building (twice as much work, but twice as many workers).
This is your computer prioritising its cores, it knows 1 job will benefit more from more cores, and so it gives that job the extra resources.
You could leave it at that if you like, or read on for 2 more factors that contribute to performance of multi-core processors and multi-threaded applications
Now with those examples with the builders, there were 3 important parts, 1 of which wasn't mentioned except for at the start - the width of the corridor, the number of builders and the number of piles. In the examples, the people were cores, the bricks instructions. Now when referring to the programs, those which could use more than 1 core were multi-threaded. Note the last part of that term - threaded. A thread is what the builders really were, whilst the piles of bricks were the cores. This is where a technology used by Intel comes in called HyperThreading.
On the building site, imagine that there are 2 builders, but only 1 pile of bricks. Each builder will go to the same pile to get the bricks, then go and do their job. This is what HyperThreading does, it makes the computer see each core as 2 cores instead, so it can spread the load over each core more efficiently, so a quad core may actually have 8 threads, being able to focus on 8 jobs at once.
On the building site though, as each builder takes from the pile, they accidentally get in the way of the other builder coming to the pile of bricks, slowing them down slightly. This is the same in HyperThreading, as there aren't 2 physical cores, just 1 core and 2 threads, it doesn't double performance, but it does increase the performance of each core
Now imagine again a single building with a corridor going towards it that can only allow for 1 person at a time. 1 person carrying 1 bricks will be slower than 1 person using a wheelbarrow to carry 10 bricks. Even if the person carrying the bricks was running back and forth, he would have to go 10 times faster than the person walking with the bricks to build the building as quickly. The person with the wheelbarrow is doing the same job more efficiently. This, in computer terms, is CPU architecture, or the design of the circuitry of the processor. The speed the processor runs at, measured in hertz (Hz) is not necessarily indicative of its speed, clock rate can only be used as a measurement of performance with in the same family of processors. Once you look at processors from a different family or different architecture, each may have different performance clock for clock.
What that means is doing the same job, 1 may be quicker than the other, as it is more efficient, 1 is a builder using his hands, the other is a builder with a wheelbarrow.
Certain parts of that are slightly simplified by the way, but all of it would stand up until you start to understand how certain aspects of computing work, such as prioritising processor time. You can see why my example of prioritising cores isn't 100% accurate simply by opening up task manager on your computer and hitting the processes tab. Each of those processes is requiring 1 or more threads, and I bet you have maybe 40+ of them, yet you don't have a CPU with 40 cores, or 20 + HyperThreading
1. When you buy a Dell computer, you are paying for labour costs in building the computer and because it is a Dell, so the average Joe doesn't know better, and those that do know better would rather pay the extra bit than either look around for a better deal or do it themselves.
2. Dell, and all other OEM companies, Acer, HP, Gateway etc are buisnesses - they want as little going out as possible and the most coming in in order to make the most profit. Put simply, their systems are built by the lowest bidder, and the saying "you get what you pay for" applies more in computers than it does in maybe any other area. Though these OEM companies are technically paying for the same level of performance in their components, they aren't getting the same quality.
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