Too many programming terms - CPU, GPU, RAM, Harddrive

Hey everyone,

today I want to face a quite important and very basic topic.
I want to tell you what your computer components are actually for.

First off, the motherboard is the central place responsible for connecting all the named pieces.
A better motherboard often means better connecting speed between the components, more slots and so on.

A good analogy of the motherboard would be our body hull which gives place to all our organs.

Now the CPU (Central Processing Unit) is the actual core of your system.
I won't talk about multi-core structures since I explained it already in a previous post :here
The CPU will basically calculate everything your programs have to do.
Usually, the CPU speed is displayed in 'GHz' which describes the number of instructions per core of the CPU is able to execute per second. Since its 'G' as for Giga, that means it describes billions.
While for you most operations in the computer seem to have nothing to do with calculations, all of them are broken down in mathematical operations.

Therefore, the higher the Hertz of the CPU, the faster each core, the more cores, the more parallel executions.

The CPU is like the parts of the human brain of us humans which are responsible for decision making, without a brain not much will happen.

Sometimes even with a brain not much happens -> See Fritz

RAM (Random-Access Memory) describes the temporary memory of a computer.

You can imagine this memory like the memory you're using when you're studying the day before the test.

Like Fritz, you're just filling information in your temporary memory to access it just at the right time (The exam) and will then forget about it again.

This means, the higher the amount of RAM the more information can be held in that temporary storage which is fortunately way faster than the actually persistent storage.

Now, on the other side, the Harddrive will store data over days, weeks, months or years depending on how lucky you are. This storage is significantly slower than the temporary memory but also easily holds over 100 times as much data.

A better hard drive often means a) faster access times and/or b) more storage.

Now, the GPU is a quite interesting piece and is usually referred to as "Graphics card".

The GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) is responsible for calculating graphical processes on our computer, it is required to render everything you can see on your screens and mainly important for displaying images, videos or games.

The GPU works quite similar to the CPU but has a few distinct features.

The GPU usually offers an enormous quantity of cores for parallel executes
But, each core of the GPU has way less processing power than the actual CPU.

This way the GPU is enormously fast for a huge quantity of simple mathematical functions, mainly optimized for floating point numbers.

So, when you buy a new computer you have to think about your priorities.
The stronger your CPU the faster your programs runs, but, if you don't offer enough RAM, this will be hard to leverage since a lot of information has to be kept in temporary storage.
If you require many graphical operations, let it be games or high-resolution movies you will need a GPU, the higher resolution and the more things you want it to display the better the GPU has to be.
And, the better those parts are, the better your motherboard should be, so it won't be the bottleneck between the parts.

I hope that helped you a bit with the decision when you'll buy your next pc.
Until the next time.