Computer PC Technical Glossary

Computer Technology Glossary

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Access Time The amount of time something takes to find a piece of information and allow it to be used by other devices.

ACR Audio Communications Riser, a slot that is only used by large OEMs to add cheap devices to their computers. Since ACR devices are software based, they often times sap a lot of CPU resources.

AGP Accelerated Graphics Port - Brown slot located nearest to the processor on most motherboards. AGP ports are used exclusively for graphics cards and are set back and keyed differently so that other expansion cards will not fit in them.

It's how AGP looks like

AMR Audio Modem Riser, like the ACR, AMR's are extremely low cost software devices that can do a host of functions. Since they are software based, they use quite a bit of CPU resources.

Anti Aliasing The method in which jagged lines in 3d environments (easily seen in the horizon of games) are removed and smoothed out for a picture that is easier on the eyes.

API Application Program Interface a set of rules programmers must adhere to when designing/developing new applications.

Appaloosa .13 micron version of the Morgan. Expected in 2002.

Asic Application-Specific Integrated Circuit

AT Power connector Mother Board Connects for an AT power supply, black wires go towards the center.

It's how AT Power connector looks like

Athlon the official name of AMD's 7th generation processor. Comes in several variants that include classic Athlon and the Athlon "Thunderbird". Also see K7, model 1, model 2and model 4.

Athlon XP SFF The lower power version of the Athlon meant for small form factor systems, hence the name. It is currently available only in the Asian market and may also be related to the Cool and Quiet name.

ATX Power Connector ATX - AT Extended form factor. Referrs to a standard for motherboard configuration and layout called the ATX Motherboard Specification. The AtX power connector replaced the older standard and allows the power supply to be turned on or off by the computer itself, rather than just by a physical switch.

It's how ATX Power Connector looks like

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Bandwidth The amount of data that can be transferred at a time.

Barton Code name for the successor to the Athlon. Barton will be 32-bit and use SOI with a .13 micron process. Expected release is in the 2nd half of 2002.

Benchmarks A set of conditions or criteria against which a product or system is measured.

BGA Ball Grid Array, the method chipsets are attached to motherboards, using solder balls

Bios Basic Input/Output System. Software that determines what a computer can do without accessing programs. Your BIOS has the information to control the keyboard, screen, drives, serial communications, and other functions. BIOS is typically built into a ROM chip installed on the motherboard.

broadband High speed internet access via cable lines or ADSL phone lines.

BSOD Blue Screen of Death, when the Windows OS continually blue screens and you cannot do anything to fix this.

Burn To record information onto a writable optical medium such as a CD-R.

Burn in A given period of time in which a system is fully stressed to make sure there are no faults.

Bus Mastering Allows for peripherals to directly communicate to each other without the help of the CPU. This often results in higher performance as well as less CPU utilization.
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Camaro the mobile version of AMD's Duron. Will contain 64KB of on-die L2 cache and will also feature PowerNow! The new code name is Morgan.

Capacitor A small electric element that is used to temporarily store electrical charge.

CardBus 32-bit industry standard used for devices that fit into a laptop PC slot.

CAT5 Referring to Category 5 Ethernet cabling, the CAT5 standard allows for data transfers up to 100 Mbps.

CAT7 Category 7 quality cabling is needed for Gigabit (Gbps) Ethernet transmissions.

CD-R (CD-Recordable) A recordable CD technology for data and music storage using a low-cost disc that can be written only once. To record a 650MB disc takes from 5 to 74 minutes depending on the speed of the drive.

CD-ROM Compact Disc Read Only Memory. A compact disc format used to hold text, graphics and hi-fi stereo sound. The audio CD player cannot play CD-ROMs, but CD-ROM players can play audio discs.

CD-RW CD ReWritable. A rewritable CD technology. CD-RW drives can also be used to write CD-R discs, and they can read CD-ROMs. A CD-RW disc can be rewritten over a thousand times and read on MultiRead CD-ROM drives or CD-RW compatible Audio CD players.

Chomper the old code name for the K6-2 processor. The K6-2 in a nutshell is the K6 with 3DNow! SIMD instructions.

Clawhammer internal code name for the first member of the Hammer family of 64-bit processors. It is scheduled to appear in the 2nd half of 2001.

CMOS Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor, a chip that packs many components into a very small semiconductor.

CNR Communications Network Riser - Small slot next to the PCI slots which a modem or sound riser card plugs into.

It's how CNR looks like

Coax Referring to coaxial cable, Coax is similar to TV cabling. Used for older 10Base2 Ethernet networks.

Corrupted When data gets damaged and can no longer be used.

Corvette the old code name for AMD's mobile Athlon processor. It will be available in the second half of 2000 and contain 256KB of on-die L2 and will also feature PowerNow! The mobile version of the Thunderbird. The new code name is Palomino.

CPU Central Processing Unit, your processors. ex. Pentium III, AMD Athlon, Transmeta Crusoe, and the Intel Pentium 4.

It's how CPU looks like

crossover cable Cat 5 cable in which the internal wiring crosses over; used to connect computer-to-computer or when no uplink ports are available on a hub.

CRT Stands for Cathode Ray Tube, the glass portion of any traditional monitor. Operates by shooting electrons through a screen which enables images to be projected on the back of a phosphorescent coating on the screen.

Crusoe Mobile processor developed by Transmeta corp.

CXT core the CXT core was an improvement made to the K6-X line of processors. It added a write combining feature that could be taken advantage of if the bios for the motherboard supported it. It also shrunk the process below .25 micron, but not all the way to .18 micron.

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daisy-chain Connecting devices together in a string. Most often associated with SCSI devices.

DDR Acronym for Double Data Rate, a type of Synchronous DRAM, or SDRAM. DDR SDRAM enables data transfers to occur on both edges of the clock cycle, thus doubling the memory throughput of the chip.

DDR RAM An extension of SDRAM technology, DDR effectively doubles the bandwidth available by sending data on the falling edge of the clock cycle as well as on the rising edge.

DHCP DHCP- Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol. Method of assigning temporary IP addresses to computers to ensure network security.

digi board hardware to build a ras server.

Dimm DIMM RAM is characterized by its 168pins.

It's how Dimm looks like

DIMM Slots DIMM memory fits into special 168 pin slots which are located on the motherboard, usually adjacent from the processor.

It's how DIMM Slots looks like

DOCSIS DOCSIS - Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification. A standard for transferring internet data over cable lines.

Dot Pitch Used to describe the horizontal size of pixels on CRT and LCD displays. The smaller the dot pitch (for example 0.26mm) the better the resolution of the display.

Double Click 2 clicks of the mouse at the same time. If the program detects a double click it often will open the selected application.

DRAM A type of semiconductor memory in which the information is stored in capacitors on a MOS integrated circuit. Typically each bit is stored as an amount of electrical charge in a storage cell consisting of a capacitor and a transistor. Due to leakage the capacitor discharges gradually and the memory cell loses the information. Therefore, to preserve the information, the memory has to be refreshed periodically. Despite this inconvenience, the DRAM is a very popular memory technology because of its high density and consequent low price.

DSL DSL - Digital Subscriber Line: high-speed internet connection offered by telephone companies over existing phone lines. Speeds of up to about 1.5Mb are possible.

Duron the official name of AMD's low cost Athlon variant processor. Previous to announcement was known by the code name of Spitfire.

DVD Digital Versatile Disc. Introduced in 1996, the optical discs share the same overall dimensions of a CD, but have significantly higher capacities - holding from 4 to 28 times as much data.

DVD Video Popular format for high quality MPEG2 video and digital surround sound. Enables multilanguage, multisubtitling and other advanced user features.

DVD+RW DVD Rewritable. It is the only rewritable format that provides full, non-cartridge, compatibility with existing DVD-Video players and DVD-ROM drives for both real-time video recording and random data recording across PC and entertainment applications.

DVD-Audio This audio-only storage format similar to CD-Audio, however offers 16, 20 and 24-bit samples at a variety of sampling rates from 44.1 to 192KHz, compared to 16 bits and 44.1KHz for CDs. DVD-Audio discs can also contain music videos, graphics and other information.

DVD-R DVD Recordable. The authoring use drive (635nm laser) was introduced in 1998 by Pioneer, and the general use format (650nm laser) was authorized in 2000. DVD-R offers a write-once, read-many storage format akin to CD-R and is used to master DVD-Video and DVD-ROM discs.

DVD-RAM DVD Random Access Memory. A rewritable DVD disc endorsed by Panasonic, Hitachi and Toshiba. It is a cartridge-based, and more recently, bare disc technology for data recording and playback. DVD-RAM bare discs are fragile and do not guarantee data integrity. The first DVD-RAM drives had a capacity of 2.6GB (single sided) or 5.2GB (double sided). DVD-RAM Version 2 discs have double-sided 9.4GB discs. DVD-RAM drives typically read DVD-Video, DVD-ROM and CD media. The current installed base of DVD-ROM drives and DVD-Video players cannot read DVD-RAM media.

DVD-ROM Read Only Memory. This read-only DVD disc is used for storing data and interactive sequences as well as audio and video. DVD-ROMs run in DVD-ROM or DVD-RAM drives, not DVD-Video players connected to TVs and home theaters. However, most DVD-ROM drives will play DVD-Video movies.

DVD-RW DVD ReWritable. A rewritable DVD format that is similar to DVD+RW, but its capability to work as a random access device is not as good as +RW. It has a read-write capacity of 4.7 GB.

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ECC Error Correcting Code. A method of generating redundant information which can be used to detect and correct errors in stored or transmitted data.

EDO Extended Data Output, a type of random access memory (RAM) chip designed to improve the time to read from memory on faster microprocessors such as the Intel Pentium.

EEPROM Electronically Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory like ROM cannot be erased unless it receives proper erasing signals from the mother device. Commonly used for BIOS's of motherboards.

EMI EMI - Electromagnetic Interference: a form of electronic radiation which can potentially corrupt data transfer.

ESD Strap A device that plugs into a standard outlet which discharges static electricity from a person. Always used when handling hardware.

Ethernet The most widely-installed local area network technology. An Ethernet LAN typically uses coaxial cable or special grades of twisted pair wires. The most commonly installed Ethernet systems are called 10BASE-T and provide transmission speeds up to 10 Mbps.

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FAB Stand for Fabrication facility, a place where computer components such as CPU/RAM/GPU are produced.

Fabless Referring to chip producers that don't have their own fabrication plant, rather outsources production to 3rd party manufacturers.

Fan Header A place where you can plug a Fan with RPM monitoring straight into the board.

It's how Fan Header looks like

FAQ Frequently Ask Questions. A place where common questions are answered already thus saving users time so they don't have to ask the same thing.

FASL Fujitsu AMD Semiconductor Limited is a joint venture between the two companies. FASL I and FASL II are fabs the companies share that AMD uses for flash memory production.

Fast Ethernet A local area network transmission standard that provides a data rate of 100 megabits per second.

FAT32 File Allocation Table maintained by an operating system on a hard disk that provides a map of the clusters that a file has been stored in. FAT 32 supports 32-bit processors.

FC-PGA CPU's with the die on the top instead of the bottom uses the Flip Chip Pin Grid Array. This is done to improve thermal heat transfer to the heatsink.

It's how FC-PGA looks like

FC-PGA2 Because FC-PGA CPU's often got damaged when the heatsink is installed, Intel came up with the idea of putting a heat spreader on top of the CPU to protect it from damage.
It's how FC-PGA2 looks like

FDD Stands for Floppy Disk Drive. Traditionally refers to the A:\ drive or 1.44 MB (3.5") High Density Floppy format, but can also refer to older 720K (5.25") Floppy drives.

Fester code name of the original 6 layer PCB AMD Athlon reference board. This is the board that shipped with the first review Athlon systems.

Fibre Channel A technology for transmitting data between computer devices at a data rate of up to 1 Gbps, especially suited for connecting computer servers to shared storage devices and for interconnecting storage controllers and drives. Devices can be as far as ten kilometers apart. The longer distance requires optical fiber as the physical medium. Fibre Channel also works using coaxial cable and ordinary telephone twisted pair.

Firewall Firewalls are used to create a protective barrier for the internal network (LAN) against the external one (WAN, Internet) which monitors packets traveling in and out of the network. Usually located at the network's gateway.

Flat Panel Type of computer display which uses an LCD panel instead of a CRT to project images. Typically the flat panel display is less than two inches thick.

It's how Flatscreen looks like

Foot Print The amount of physical space a component will take up.

FSAA Full Screen Anti Aliasing, what is done by video card to remove the jagged edges in lines. The resulting image is much smoother on the eyes, however FSAA has usually a 50% performance reduction when enabled.

FSB Stands for Front Side Bus, which denotes the speed at which your processor interacts with the components on the motherboard. Typically the FSB is 100Mhz or 133Mhz, but overclockers often manipulate this value to increase the speed at which their processor runs. i.e. 100Mhz FSB X 5.0 clockmultiplier = 500Mhz processor

Full Duplex Data transfer that allows a switch to send and receive data to a node at the same time. Also known as bidirectional communication.

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Gateway Hybrid device that translates data into different protocols, serves as network security and distributes high-speed internet connections.

GB Stands for Giga Byte, or 1 billion bytes of information.

Gbps GigaBits Per Second, refers to how bits of information traveling at 1 billion bits per second. Gbps is usually associated with Gigabit Ethernet.

GFD golden finger device. This is the device that you attach to the Slot A Athlon to manipulate the clock multiplier and voltage.

Gigabit 1,000,000,000 (10 9 ) bits

Gigabit Ethernet 1000Mbps Ethernet connection. 10 times faster than fast Ethernet

Gigabyte 1, 000,000,000 (10 9 ) bytes

Golem Code name for an upcoming AMD chipset. It is rumored to be a high end server chipset with HT support.

GPU Referring to Graphics Processor Unit, a GPU takes on the task of working with Transform and Lighting (T&L) away from the CPU so it can focus on more important things such as AI.

GUI Graphical User Interface. A software interface that interacts with the user through color graphics and a mouse.

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Half Duplex Data transfer that only sends or receives data to a node. Hubs commonly perform in half duplex mode.

Hammer code name for AMD's first fully 64bit CPU. It is currently expected to sample in early 2001 and ship late 2001. Update 2002 Hammer is currently slated to ship in Q4 2002.

This is the desktop/workstation version code name ClawHammer with an expected official name of Athlon XP 64. The server version will debut in the first half of 2003. It is code name SledgeHammer and the product name is Opteron.

HDD Stands for Hard Disk Drive. Mechanical device used to store information your computer needs to operate. Information is stored on spinning discs magnetically.

Heatsink Metal device used to cool processors and other components by means of convection or forced air.

Hop When accessing a WAN or Internet, data packets often have to travel through several places to reach it's destination, each place the packet lands on is called a hop.

Hot Swapping A method in which devices are plugged and unplugged into a computer, usually referring to USB, IEEE 1394, etc devices.

HSF Heatsink and Fan combination.

Hub Network device that joins all the network devices centrally in a star configuration.

HyperTransport The new name for LDT, or Lightning Data Transport. Jointly developed by AMD and API as a replacement to the aging PCI bus. The new name for LDT, or Lightning Data Transport. Jointly developed by AMD and API as a replacement to the aging PCI bus. he new name for LDT, or Lightning Data Transport. Jointly developed by AMD and API as a replacement to the aging PCI bus. The new name for LDT, or Lightning Data Transport. Jointly developed by AMD and API as a replacement to the aging PCI bus. The new name for LDT, or Lightning Data Transport. Jointly developed by AMD and API as a replacement to the aging PCI bus. The new name for LDT, or Lightning Data Transport. Jointly developed by AMD and API as a replacement to the aging PCI bus.

Hz Stands for Hertz, unit of measurement for Frequency.

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I/O Address Input / Output address. A 3 to 4 digit hexadecimal number used to identify and signal a peripheral device.

IBM International Business Machines, IBM is the largest computer company in the world and the first to produce a computer back in 1953.

ICS Internet Connection Sharing, a method in which 1 internet source can be shared with multiple computers.

IEEE 802.1 Standard for local area networks which cover network management and other aspects related to LANs.

IEEE 802.11b Standard for 11Mbps wireless network operation.

IEEE 802.1p Standard for quality of service; network traffic prioritization.

IEEE 802.1Q Standard relating to VLANs.

IEEE 802.2 Specifies the logical link control for various access methods.

Integrated When integrated is used, it means that 2 or more devices have been made into one device. Example, many motherboards these days have integrated video cards which means the actual video cards is built into the board.

IP Address Internet Protocol address. The address of a network node in the form of four sets of numbers up to 3 digits each and divided by periods. ie. 192.168.1.1

IPX Novell network protocol that connects computers running NetWare

IRC Internet Relay Chat, a place where IRC clients connect to an IRC server to participate in real time test conversations.

IRQ Interrupt Request

ISP Internet Service Provider

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K6-2 released in May of 1998. It is essentially a K6 processor with 3DNow! instructions.

K6-2+ new version of the K6-2 with an added 128KB of on-die L2 cache and PowerNow! technology. This version is meant for the laptop market only.

K6-III a K6-2 with 256KB of on-die L2 cache. Uses cache on motherboard as an L3 cache.

K6-III+ new version of the K6-III with the addition of PowerNow! technology. This version if meant for the laptop market only.

K7 the code name of the Athlon before it was renamed. 7th generation cpu that followed up the K5 and K6 series.

K75 code name of the .18 micron core for the classic Athlon.

kbps Kilobits Per Second, a unit of bits that is moved per second. Commonly found used to describe the throughput of analog modems. eg. 56kbps.

kHz Stands for Kilo Hertz, unit of measurement for 1000 x Frequency.

KVM Switch Console switch - Controls and scans multiple CPU's from one set of keyboard, video display and mouse.

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L2 Cache Level 2 Cache, the secondary cache memory found on CPU's, L2 Cache uses extremely high speed SRAM coupled with extremely low latencies which helps improve performance.

LAN Local Area Network. Network of interconnected workstations sharing the resources of a single processor or server, typically within the area of a small office building.

LCD Liquid Crystal Display

LIF Light Insertion Force, when installing a peripheral, requires light force to insert the device into it's slot/socket. Installing expansion cards (PCI cards and such) require LIF in order to seat it properly.

Liquid Cooling Method of cooling processors and other devices by liquid cooled water blocks. Similar in operation to heatsinks, but more efficient due to the high thermal conductivity of water.

Lithium-ion Name for an electrochemical cells whose voltages are derived from the electro potential difference of lithium in the anode and cathode. The electrolyte contains lithium ions that are transferred between the anode and cathode on charge and discharge. Unlike earlier systems, lithium-ion does not use unstable lithium metal as the anode material.

Lokar Code name for an upcoming server and workstation chipset from AMD.

LVD Low Voltage Differential is a form of SCSI signaling that was introduced with Ultra2 SCSI. Low Voltage Differential allows cable lengths of up to 12 meters with up to 15 devices. The devices need to be Ultra2 SCSI LVD devices in order to take advantage of the LVD signaling. LVD uses data high and data low signal lines to increase transmission distances over those of single-ended. LVD differs from conventional differential signaling. LVDs advantages are that it consumes less power and it can sense single-ended devices on the bus and revert to single-ended signaling.

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MB Stands for Mega Byte, or 1 million bytes of information.

Mbps Megabits per second, or one million bits per second. Refers to how fast data packets travel, or network speed.

Megabyte 1,000,000 (10 6 ) bytes

MHz Stands for Mega Hertz, unit of measurement for 1,000,000 x Frequency.

Model 1 original version of the Athlon that was fabbed with a .25 micron process at Fab 25 in Austin, Texas.

Model 2 new version of the Athlon with the improved K75 core. The K75 core was fabbed with a .18 micron process at Fab 25 in Austin, Texas.

Model 4 new "Thunderbird" Athlon with 256KB of on-die L2 cache. The model .18 micron CPU is fabbed in both Dresden, Germany with copper interconnects and in Austin, Texas with aluminum interconnects.

Moire What happens when a wave effect is caused by bright and dark dots on the screen.

Monitor Device to display images, text and shapes by means of a CRT screen.

Morgan the mobile version of AMD's Duron. Will contain 64KB of on-die L2 cache and will also feature PowerNow!

Motherboard Motherboard - a large circuit board which connects the processor, expansion cards, memory, and any other devices to one-another and to the power source.

It's how Motherboard looks like

Mouse Pad A pad which allows for smoother easier movement of the mouse then just on the surface of a table.

ms Millisecond, the amount of time needed for a device to access information, usually associated with hard drives.

MTBF Mean Time Between Failures, the average time from start of use to failure in a large population of identical systems, computers, or devices.

Multiplier Lock What is done to all modern CPU's to prevent overclocking. The multiplier of a locked CPU will remain the same even if it is changed in the BIOS.

Mustang the code name of AMD's high end Athlon processor. Yet unreleased it is rumored to have 1-2MB of on-die L2 cache.

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NAT Network Address Translation - A method used by firewalls to keep a network behind under just one IP address for security reasons.

NetBEUI NetBIOS Extended User Interface: networking protocol requiring minimal or no configuration.

Newbie A term for a person who is new to the given subject/topic.

nFinite FX nVidia's name to the T&L (Transform & Lighting) engine found in GeForce3 based video cards, for the first time, the GeForce video card is a true GPU since the nFinite FX engine allows game developers to program their own personalized code instead of relying on the hard coded scripts in the older Hardware T&L engines.

NIC Abbreviation for Network Interface Card. Network cards connect to local area networks via ethernet cables or some other means of connectivity to bring computers together electronically.

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Oc'ing An abbreviation for overclocking used often by overclockers.

OPGA Organic Pin Grid Array, is used on every Pentium 3 and above processor from Intel and on the AthlonXP. The Organic substrate is more durable then ceramic which was used before it and is also cheaper to produce.

Opteron The official name of the server version of Hammer, code named Sledgehammer. It is rumored to have 1MB of L2 cache, and is set to arrive in the 1st half of 2003.

OSD On Screen Display, how digital monitors can be configured.

Overclocking The art and science of making a processor run at a higher then normal clock speed. For instance, changing the multiplier so that a 500Mhz chip runs at 667Mhz.

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Palomino the code name for AMD's mobile Athlon processor. It will be available in the second half of 2000 and contain 256KB of on-die L2 and will also feature PowerNow! The mobile version of the Thunderbird.

PCB Printed Circuit Board

PCI Peripheral Component Interconnect. Slot card interface. PCI is a standardized architecture that provides a high-speed data path between peripherals and the CPU.

It's how Pci looks like

PCMCIA Personal Computer Memory Card International Association. A standards body that develops standards for portable accessories like network cards.

Peer-to-peer network Network of minimal security where all computers can act as a server to the other computers on the network. i.e. Napster

PetaByte 1 Petabyte equal to 1024 terabytes or approx. 1,000,000,000,000,000 bytes. 1 PB has the value of 2 to the power of 50.

PGA Pin Grid Array, the method in which the CPU uses to interact with the CPU socket.

PSU Acronym for Power Supply.

It's how PGA looks like

port Receptacle that connects to a cable.

POST Power On Self Test, a quick the BIOS does on the components in the computer to make sure everything is working when you first turn it on.

PowerNow! technology used by AMD processors to extend battery life for notebooks. It adjusts the power draw of the processor to correspond to the demand of the current application. Can improve battery life by 30%.

print server Network device that connects at least one printer to be shared among network users.

Processor Short for Central Processing Unit or CPU, the brains of any computer. The Intel Pentium line of processors and the AMD Duron and Athlon processors are classed as CPU's.

PSU Power Supply Unit - The power supply supplies electricity to the motherboard, device drives and any other peripherals in the computer.

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QuickTime Apple's multi-platform, industry-standard, multimedia software architecture. QuickTime tracks, audio and video tracks, text tracks and chapter tracks.

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RAID RAID stands for Redundant Array of Independent Disks. Several different forms of RAID implementation have been defined. Each form is usually referred to as a "RAID level."

RAID 0+1 Combines RAID 0 striping and RAID 1 mirroring. This level provides redundancy through mirroring.

RAID-0 Block "striping" across multiple drives is provided, yielding higher performance than is possible with individual drives. This level does not provide any redundancy.

RAID-1 Drives are paired and mirrored. All data is 100 percent duplicated on a drive of equivalent size.

RAID-10 Combines RAID 0 striping and RAID 1 mirroring spanned across multiple drive groups. This level provides redundancy through mirroring.

RAID-3 Data is "striped" across several physical drives. Maintains parity information which can be used for data recovery.

RAID-5 Data is "striped" across several physical drives. For data redundancy, drives are encoded with rotated XOR redundancy.

Ram Random Access Memory.

RAMDAC Random Access Memory to Digital Analog Converter. A chip on video card which turns digital signals to analog ones which can be outputted to a monitor.

RDRAM Rambus DRAM, a totally new DRAM architecture that has a huge amount of memory bandwidth, however has a high latency penalty. RDRAM is best suited for processors that need high bandwidth like Pentium 4 processors

Reflective LCD Reflective LCD technology makes use of only the surrounding ambient light to illuminate the display. Beneath the surface of the display a rear polarizer is combined with a reflector assembly to bounce back ambient light. The technology really only works well in fairly bright light only. The colors are little different from what you might normally be used to, but the display is clear and readable so long as the text is highly contrasted to the background.

Refresh Rate The amount of times the monitor refreshes (redraws) the picture on the screen. Refresh rates above 75 Hz are recommended since anything lower will cause headaches after a prolonged period of time.

Resistor A device used to control current in an electric circuit by providing resistance.

Resolution The pixel size of a display. 800x600 has a horizontal width of 800 pixels while a 600 pixel vertical length.

RIMM Rambus memory module.

Risc Reduced Instruction Set Computing, an architecture for an application-specific processor.

Riser A device that is an add from another card, takes up an expansion slot however doesn't plug directly into the motherboard.

RJ-11 Connector at the end of a standard telephone cable.

RJ-45 Registered Jacks, sometimes described as RJ-XX. Series of telephone connection interfaces that are registered with the FCC. The most common telephone jack is the RJ-11 jack, which can have six conductors but usually is implemented with four. The RJ-11 jack is likely to be the jack that your household or office phones are plugged into from the ordinary "untwisted" wire that people are most familiar with. The RJ-45 is a single-line jack for digital transmission over ordinary phone wire, either untwisted or twisted. The interface has eight pins or positions.

ROM Read Only Memory, stores very little yet essential data that cannot be erased. Often used for BIOS's or firmware for devices.

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TCPA Trusted Client Platform Alliance - AMD is building Wave Systems Corporation's Embassy Reference Design

TCP-IP Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol, the basic communication language or protocol of the Internet.

Tecate code name of the AMD 760 chipset reference motherboard. The 760 chipset allows for a 266MHz as well as DDR SDRAM support.

TeraByte 1 trillion bytes or 1000 Gigabytes. In binary, 1 TB is 2 to the power of 40.

TFT Abbreviation of thin film transistor, a type of LCD flat-panel display screen where each pixel is controlled by transistors. This technology provides the best resolution of all the flat-panel techniques. Also sometimes called active-matrix LCDs.

Thor Codename for an upcoming servers and workstation chipset from AMD.

Thoroughbred .13 micron version of the Palomino. Expected in 2002.

Thresher code name for the test platform for AMD's Corvette, or mobile platform. Includes Socket 462, Twinlight Northbridge, and ALi's 1535 mobile Southbridge.

Throughput The amount of data that passes though a device/point in a given amount of time.

Thunderbird the code name for the Athlon processor with 256KB of on-die L2 cache.

Transflective LCD Transflective LCD technology is a combination of Reflective and Transmissive types. The rear of the LCD's polarizer is partially reflective and combined with a back light for use in all types of lighting conditions. The benefit here is the back light can be left on where there is insufficient outside lighting. Conversely when there is enough ambient light it can shut off to conserve power. Transflective takes the best of both worlds and enables viewing in dark environments. Additionally the display won't "wash out" when viewed in direct sunlight. However the contrast rating is not as high as a purely Transmissive display.

Transistor The on and off switches found inside every single piece of computer equipment, the on and off states on transistors is the language of the computer, binary. Today's advanced CPU's have millions upon million of transistors.

Transmissive LCD Transmissive LCD display technology is essentially how a normal display operates. To view the screen the backlight must be on continuously, and brighter then the ambient light or it will be washed out and difficult to read. Traditional LCD displays are naturally very power hungry and operate best in darker lighting conditions (under 5,000 LUX ambient).

TruForm Found only in ATi's Radeon 8500 series and above, TruForm allows for the GPU to draw many more triangles for objects on the screen without a performance hit. This allows for rendered objects to have a more realistic look to them since curves and such will be smoother.

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U

UDMA Ultra DMA

Ultra SCSI SCSI protocol that has a bus speed of 20 MB/s in the normal SCSI configuration and 40 MB in the Wide SCSI configuration.

Ultra Wide SCSI 16-bit wide Ultra SCSI double the speed of normal SCSI.

Ultra2 SCSI High performance SCSI protocol, faster than Ultra SCSI. Ultra2 SCSI has a bus speed of 40 MB/s in the Narrow SCSI configuration and 80 MB/s in the Wide SCSI (Wide Ultra2 SCSI) configuration.

Uplink Port Special port on a hub or switch that connects to another hub or switch to expand port density.

USB Universal Serial Bus. Plug and play standard enabling a device to be used with out extensive user intervention.

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Viewing Angle The angle in which you can still clearly see a LCD monitor. Going past the viewing angle results in a inferior image even though the LCD is fully operational.

VLAN Virtual Local Area Network

VOIP Voice over IP - Transmission of two-way audio over the internet.

VPN Virtual Private Network: A private network that generally uses the internet as a less expensive and secured wide area network through data encryption.

VRM Voltage Regulator Module. A device on or attached to the motherboard which regulates the power that is fed to the processor.

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WAN Wide Area Network: Network spread over a wide physical range.

Wide SCSI SCSI protocol and signal definition providing a 16-bit wide data path.

Win98 Short hand for Microsoft Windows 98 Edition Operation System

Win98SE Short hand for Microsoft Windows 98 Second Edition Operation System. Also known as Windows 98 B

WinME Short hand for Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition Operation System

Wintel Industry term for personal computers based on the Intel microprocessor and one of the Windows operating systems from Microsoft.

wireless Networking technology using electromagnetic, infrared, or radio waves to transmit data.

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