About Technology

By Aki Horie

So, talking about "processors and graphics cards" is a little vague. Here's a start for all of you:

1. A Few Common myths of processors and graphics cards

2. The power of processors and graphics cards

3. If one were to reign supreme and have most of the computer under its control, which one will have that control?

In this article, I will be talking about some common myths.

Common Myths of Processors and Graphics Cards

Now, many of you are new to computers, some who are pretty good with computer hardware, and there're us, the experts. But there're always common myths lurking around rising from misconceptions of a few people and spreading around through forums and websites. But I'm going to crack some of them.

One common myth I come across is this one: "A computer cannot exist without a graphics card installed." Well, most of you would probably want a graphics card installed on your computer for kicks and giggles, and maybe for shows. But that's not true; computers can run WITHOUT graphics cards. A common and one of the only options for running computers without graphics cards is to have a motherboard with integrated graphics. This is a really cool feature for those of you who don't really need the graphics power because you save money from not buying a graphics card. These motherboards with integrated graphics is definitely not as powerful as some of the mid-range and high-range graphics cards, but it will churn out more than enough power to give you a display on your monitor.

Another common myth I hear a lot is "Oh no, my Core2 processor is only 1.45 GHz, it's so slow!!!!!" Again, that's definitely NOT true. The processing speed of CPUs and its efficiency depends on many factors. One main factor is the number of cores.

As technology keeps developing and revolutionizing itself, programs and hardware must both keep up. Today, we have single-core processors, dual-core processors, tri-core processors(AMD's Phenom) and the quad-core processors. Now, if you have been "trapped" by this common myth, you will think that a 3.00 GHz Pentium processor will be faster and more efficient than a Core2 1.45Ghz processor.

Well, that's wrong; take into consideration the number of cores: the Pentium has 1, and the Core2 has two cores(in this example). Now, when you have two cores PLUS hyper-threading, this means that you essentially have 4 cores, just not written on the box or the computer. This means that you have cores just as powerful or more powerful than the one in the Pentium, and you have four of them.

As you start using more and more programs simultaneously, the Core 2 processor will have an easy time utilizing its cores, but the Pentium will have a hard time because it will only have 1 core, and it can only take on so many threads and tasks. That's why processor speeds, at first glance, do not really matter.

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