Computer Hardware
This specific power supply rail typically powers CPUs and GPUs and must stay between 11.4 V and 12.6 V to meet common regulation tolerances.
What is the 12‑volt rail?
This motherboard form factor measures 12 by 9.6 inches and is the mainstream standard for tower desktops.
What is ATX?
This storage technology uses spinning magnetic platters, tracks, and sectors, and is still popular for high‑capacity, low‑cost systems.
What is a hard disk drive (HDD)?
This type of local network covers a small geographic area, like a school lab or home, usually providing high speed and low latency.
What is a LAN (Local Area Network)?
This term describes a CPU design where multiple instructions are executed during different stages of completion simultaneously in a single core.
What is pipelining?
This PSU form factor measures roughly 100 mm wide, 63.5 mm high, and 125 mm deep, and is used for compact desktops while often remaining modular
What is SFX?
This CPU socket style places the pins in the socket instead of on the processor, using flat lands on the CPU package.
What is LGA (Land Grid Array)?
This solid‑state storage interface uses PCIe lanes and the NVMe protocol, often appearing as a “gumstick” module in the M.2 2280 form factor.
What is an M.2 NVMe SSD?
This device forwards packets within a LAN using MAC addresses and can be unmanaged or fully managed with VLAN support.
What is a network switch?
This CPU feature allows a single physical core to present itself as two logical processors by duplicating architectural state but not execution units.
What is simultaneous multithreading (SMT) or Hyper-Threading?
This ATX motherboard power connector expanded the older 20‑pin design to provide more 12 V and 5 V lines, becoming the standard mainboard connector.
What is the 24‑pin ATX power connector?
This type of memory module adds error‑correcting capability to detect and fix single‑bit errors and is typically used in servers and workstations.
What is ECC RAM?
This RAID level stripes data across multiple disks without parity or mirroring, maximizing speed and capacity at the cost of having no redundancy
What is RAID 0?
This twisted‑pair Ethernet category supports up to 1 Gbps at 100 MHz and improved crosstalk performance over CAT5
What is CAT 5e?
This memory architecture, used in many modern desktop platforms, puts the memory controller on the CPU die itself rather than on the motherboard chipset.
What is an integrated memory controller (IMC)?
In PSU efficiency programs, this 80 PLUS level typically requires about 90 percent efficiency at 50 percent load on standard desktop units.
What is 80 PLUS Gold?
On dual‑channel desktop boards, placing two matched DIMMs into same‑coloured slots primarily increases this effective attribute of the memory subsystem
What is memory bandwidth?
In operating systems, this technique uses part of a drive as simulated RAM, known as the page file or swap space, to prevent immediate out‑of‑memory crashes.
What is virtual memory?
This wireless standard, branded as Wi‑Fi 6, focuses on efficiency in dense environments and introduces technologies like MU‑MIMO improvements.
What is 802.11ax?
This measurement, usually in gigahertz, tells you how many cycles a CPU can perform each second, but does not by itself determine overall performance.
What is the clock speed?
Enterprise servers often use this multi‑PSU configuration, where each supply can be replaced while the system remains powered and another unit instantly assumes the full load if one fails
What is a hot‑swappable redundant PSU setup?
In cache hierarchy, this level is usually the largest and shared across all cores on modern CPUs, but is slower than the per‑core levels.
What is L3 cache?
Blu‑ray single‑layer discs typically store about this many gigabytes of data, far exceeding a standard single‑layer DVD.
What is 25 GB?
This LCD‑based panel technology offers superior colour accuracy and viewing angles, making it preferred for professional photo and design work.
What is IPS (In‑Plane Switching)?
This type of memory is non‑volatile, very fast to read, slow to write, and is used to store a computer’s firmware such as the BIOS or UEFI.
What is flash memory (ROM/firmware ROM)?