General Networking Forum

Bus Speeds - The most commonly inferred bus is the Front Side Bus. This is the connection between the CPU and the Northbridge (chip that controls the memory and high speed ports like PCI-e). Speeds are expressed in Mhz. The CPU speed is a multiple of the FSB speed. A 400 Mhz FSB and a clock multiplier of 8 puts the CPU speed at 3.2 Ghz (3,200 Mhz). Single/Dual/Triple Channel - Refers to using sets 1, 2 or 3 RAM sticks (or a paring of 2,4 or 6 sticks) on supported motherboards that allow it to access the RAM in with special sequencing to increase the bandwidth. DIMM slots on the motherboard are usually color coded to make it easier to see which slots are required for which channel operation. Cache Size - On a hard drive it is a way to save data for potential use later, to match drive speeds and read/write speeds, and allow the hard drive to continue reading something before writing something else. Flash vs Mechanical - Traditional mechanical hard drives work like a record player. A metal discs spins really fast and a read/write head moves over it reading and writing data. While they've become quite fast and store a lot of data they are a physically moving part making them very susceptible to mechanical failure and we've reached a lot of speed roadblocks. Flash based hard drives (known as Solid State Drives) work like your RAM does in that no mechanical parts exists and speeds are greatly increased. Capacity and cost are their roadblocks. IDE - This is an interface standard for hard drives and optical drives. Commonly known as PATA (Parallel ATA), it uses a very wide ribbon cable style interface and has been update to SATA (Serial ATA) allowing for higher bandwidth, much smaller cabling and other features. 802.11 - Wifi protocols. Each new standard (b,g,n, etc...) provides greater range, bandwidth and other features. Wireless Interface - The point of transmission and reception in a network. Standards - Protocols, definitions and guidelines established by a regulating body to ensure communications compatibility among relevant equipment. Hope those help.