thRaWn
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Acronyms Have you ever wondered what people mean when they say "I've bought an Intel cpu, its a LGA775 socket, along with 2 1GB DIMMS of DDR2 6400 RAM running at 800mhz, also got a PCI-E GPU with DDR3 RAM running at 1400mhz effective and a GPU running at 550mhz" You can search such sites as Wikipedia to get an understanding but why do that when i've done all the hard work for you, and its all in one place! I've put as many as i could think of, if you think i've missed any feel free to send me a p.m (as you can't post on here) and I'll include it/them). Hopefully you'll find it useful. They're all listed alphabetically to aid in viewing.
AA - 'Anti-Aliasing', artificially removing the jagged edges from graphics rendered (or drawn) in 3D rendering. ACPI - 'Advanced Configuration and Power Interface'. The standard by which motherboard & peripheral devices are configured,recognised and, more importantly, their power usage managed. ADSL - 'Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line'. A DSL connection where the upstream connection runs at a different speed to the downstream. AF - 'Anisotropic Filtering'. A method of improving 3D texture sharpness. AGP - 'Accelerated Graphics Port'. A graphics card interface. Now pretty much phased out by the PCI-E interface. AMB - 'Advanced Memory Buffer'. A part of the FBDIMM architecture. AMD - 'Advanced Micro Devices'. Manufacturer of CPU's and now graphics cards after purchasing ATI. API - 'Application Programming Interface'. Software drivers that allow one piece of software to "talk to another", or to the PC's hardware. ASIC - 'Application Specific Integrated Circuit'. A chip designed to run one specific task. Such as running a calculator. You also find them on motherboards. ATA - 'Advanced Technology Attachment'. Standard interface connection for connecting storage devices to your PC. You'll see S-ATA (Serial) and also P-ATA (Parallel). ATX - 'Advanced Technology Extended'. The standard formfactor for motherboards and cases. BIOS - 'Basic Input Output System'. A piece of code, kept on the motherboard, which loads all the controls for a PC's components and peripherals. BSOD - 'Blue Screen Of Death'. Blue screen that appears on your monitor when theres a fault or faults with a PC, rather serious ones if this appears. CoDec - 'Compression Decompression Algorithm', A video or audio compression code. MPEG4 or MP3 are examples. CPU - 'Central Processing Unit', the primary part of your PC, which interprets and executes the instructions contained within software. dBA - 'Decibels, A-weighted', an expression of acoustical volume using the 'A' weighting, which emphasises the frequencies most psycho-acoustically important to the human perception of loudness. DDR - 'Double data rate', a RAM system that transfers data on the rising and falling edge of the clock signal. DIMM - 'Dual in-line memory module', a RAM module configuration with a 64-bit data path. DOS - 'Disk operating system', the last Microsoft software to require less than 2GB of RAM for smooth operation. DRAM - 'Dynamic random access memory', a type of RAM that uses capacitors for storage. Since capacitors are inherently volatile, the data fades unless regularly refreshed. DSL - 'Digital subscriber line', a broadband system whereby the signal is encoded across a wide frequency spectrum and sent down the twisted copper pair wiring used by your telephone service. DSP - 'Digital signal processor', a specialised microprocessor aimed at processing digital signals, as its name suggests. D-SUB - 'D-subminiature', a D-shaped electrical connector amalgamating multiple pins or sockets. This usually refers to VGA video connections. DVI - 'Digital visual interface', a video connector that passes the graphics signal digitally in order to maximise image quality. ECC - 'Error-correcting code', a data encoding method which conforms to specific rules, so that deviations can be detected as errors and corrected automatically. Used in some RAM. EDO - Extended Data Out DRAM EDO DRAM is similar to Fast Page Mode DRAM with the additional feature that a new access cycle can be started while keeping the data output of the previous cycle active. This allows a certain amount of overlap in operation (pipelining), allowing somewhat improved speed. It was 5% faster than Fast Page Mode DRAM, which it began to replace in 1993. EEPROM - 'Electronically erasable programmable read-only memory', a type of ROM which can be erased and rewritten, but normally holds its data without needing an external power supply. EIDE - 'Extended integrated drive electronics', the predecessor to ATA, supporting drives up to 8.4GB. EPS12V - 'Enhanced power supply 12V', an extended ATX power supply connection with a 24-pin primary and an 8-pin secondary plug. FAT - 'File allocation table', a disk partition format introduced in the late 70's. FBDIMM - 'Fully buffered DIMM', a new type of serial memory using an AMB to increase the amount of addressable RAM. FSB - 'Front side bus', the high-speed connection between a CPU and the Northbridge chipset, which then steers requests to peripheral devices and memory. FTP - 'File transfer protocol', a standard system for transferring files over the Internet. FPU - 'Floating point unit', a part of the CPU for calculating operations on floating-point numbers (those containing decimal points). GPU - 'Graphics processing unit', a specialised graphics processor that forms the basis of your PC's 3D display processing. HDD - 'Hard disk drive', Permanent storage unit within a pc for the O.S, software etc. HDCP - 'High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection', an encryption system to stop you pirating HD content through DVI and HDMI connections. HDMI - 'High-definition multimedia interface', a new digital connection based on DVI or dual-link DVI, but with additional wiring for audio and control signals. HSF - 'Heatsink and fan', a cooling assembly providing radiator fins and forced airflow over a CPU or other heat-producing components. HT - 'Hyper-Transport' (AMD processors, also called HTT) or 'Hyper-Threading' (Intel processors), a serial bus for connecting peripherals other than memory, and a way of running two threads concurrently on a single NetBurst core . ISP - 'Internet service provider', a firm that provides Internet connections. JPEG - 'Joint Photographic Experts Group', used to refer to the image compression format created by this group. LAN - 'Local area network', a locally wired networking system. MCE - 'Media Center Edition', the version of Windows XP that's optimised for recording TV and uses a remote control. MIMO - 'Multiple input, multiple output', a method of increasing bandwidth on a WLAN by using multiple aerials so reflections and interference can contribute to signal quality rather than reduce it. NTFS - 'New technology file system', the hard disk partition format introduced with Windows NT onwards. OS - 'Operating system', such as Windows or Linux P2P - 'Peer to peer', a form of file sharing where no data is centrally held, and clients contribute upstream bandwidth as they download. PCB - 'Printed circuitboard', a board made of layers of insulator and conductive circuitry laminated together in order to electrically connect components mounted on the surface of the board. PCI - 'Peripheral component interconnect', the standard connection for supplementary adaptors. PCI-E - 'PCI Express', PCI's high-bandwidth serial replacement. POST - 'Power On Self Test', the routine PCs go through to check that core components are working prior to booting up the OS. PPU - 'Physics processing unit', a new processor pioneered by Ageia in Sony's Cell CPU. PRML - 'Partial response maximum likelihood', a hard disk coding technology that increases the ability to read weak data signals, thereby increasing the possible data densities of hard disks. PSU - 'Power supply unit', the big silver brick in the top of your case that supplies power to your PC. RAM - 'Random access memory', a data storage format using integrated circuits. The data can be accessed in any order rather than in sequence, unlike tape storage. RAID - 'Redundant array of inexpensive disks', a system whereby multiple hard disks are striped with a single data structure. This can increase performance by reading and writing in parallel , increase fault tolerance by holding data in more than one place, or both. RGB - 'Red, green, blue', an additive colour model based on the three primary colours of light, which together create pure white. RISC - 'Reduced instruction set computer', a CPU that uses a limited set of simple operations, such as the IBM PowerPC. ROM - 'Read-only memory', different to RAM in that it's preprogrammed with data. You can read but can't write over it. ROP - 'Raster operation' or 'Render output unit', the former is the final part of the 3D rendering process performed by your GPU. The latter is the part of the GPU which performs this operation. SDRAM - 'Synchronous dynamic random access memory', a type of RAM. Unlike regular DRAM, which is asynchronous, SDRAM reads and writes data in synchronisation with the clock signal. SLI - 'Scan-line interleave' (3dfx) or 'Scalable link interface' (Nvidia), whereby multiple graphics cards process 3D rendering in parallel. SM - 'Shader Model', a collection of pixel and vertex shader instructions included as part of the DirectX graphics API. SIMM - 'Single in-line memory module', a RAM module configuration with a 32-bit data path. SODIMM - 'Small outline dual in-line memory module', the standard form factor for laptop memory. SRAM - 'Static random access memory', a type of RAM that holds data as long as power is supplied without regular refreshing. T&L - 'Transform & Lighting', a 3D rendering system that calculates the 3D position and dynamic illumination of polygons, which was a precursor to pixel and vertex shading. TFT - 'Thin-film transistor', a transistor deposited on a substrate (usually glass) to create an active matrix of switching pixels in flat-screen displays. TIM - 'Thermal interface material', A paste-like (or pad) substance used to ensure good thermal conductivity between a chip and its HSF. USB - 'Universal serial bus', a serial connection for external peripherals VGA - 'Video graphics array', an analogue PC display standard, VIVO - 'Video input, video output', denotes a graphics card that has a video input and a video output. VoIP - 'Voice over IP', a system for converting telephony into data packets for sending over the Internet. VPN - 'Virtual Private Network', a security system used to protect remote connections to business networks over the Internet. VRM - 'Voltage regulator module', a motherboard chip that regulates the voltage supplied to the CPU. WLAN - 'Wireless Local Area Network', Same as a LAN but without wires. Uses one of the 802.11 protocols for communication.
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