Peek inside a PC and you’ll find a dizzying array of components connected to the motherboard. Here’s a look at how those different chips, slots and ports work together.
CPU
The brain of the system, the CPU controls the calculations that run programs. Though other components are as important as the CPU, it still has the greatest influence on a PC’s speed.
Chip set
These chips act as traffic cops on the motherboard, directing the flow of data and determining which devices the PC will support. A chip set directs the flow of data from the CPU to the graphics board and system memory. It also determines the speed of the front-side bus, memory bus, and graphics bus, as well as the capacity and type of memory supported. In addition, it directs the flow of data through the PCI bus, IDE drives and I/O ports and determines which IDE standards and types of ports the system will support.
System memory
RAM (Random Access Memory) holds programs, computations and other data which the CPU needs to access while your PC is running. The amount, type and speed of RAM has a large effect on system performance.
AGP
This dedicated path for graphics data gives the graphics controller direct access to the CPU and main memory. AGP comes in three speed flavours: 1X, 2X and 4X, which can transfer data at up to 1.07GByte per second. Faster AGP speed can aid performance in graphics-heavy 3D games.
IDE
Data-storage devices such as your hard disk and CD ROM drive connect through the IDE interface. Early versions transferred data at 16.6MByte per second. Common devices today use the ATA/33, ATA/66, or ATA/100 versions of the IDE and transfer data at up to 33.3 Mbit/s, 66.6Mbit/s, or 100Mbit/s.
PCI
This bus provides connections for internal devices such as sound cards, internal modems and SCSI controllers. It can move data at 133Mbit/s. Many PCs still house slots for cards that connect to the slower ISA bus.
I/0 ports
These provide connections (keyboard, mouse, parallel, serial, or USB) for external devices such as digital cameras, printers and scanners.
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