Computer Hardware

What is hardware?

What is a motherboard?

What is the central processing unit (CPU)?

What are the two major CPU manufacturers for PCs (personal computers)?

What is mass storage?

What is a Hard Disk Drive (HDD)?

What is a Solid State Drive (SSD)?

Which is generally faster: HDD or SSD?

Which is less prone to failure: HDD or SSD? Why?

What is random access memory (RAM)?

When is RAM used?

How is RAM different from mass storage? Why?

When should mass storage be used over RAM?

What is cache (in the context of computing)?

What is a graphical processing unit (GPU)?

What two places does the GPU typically reside?

What is a clock (in the context of computing)? Hint: it doesn’t tell you what day it is, and it’s very important for a CPU to run.

What is the power supply unit (PSU)?

What is Universal Serial Bus (USB)? When would you use it?

What is a Secure Digital (SD) card? When would you use it?

What is Video Graphics Array (VGA), Digital Visual Interface (DVI), and High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) for?

What are routers?

What are modems?