Socket Type Definition

A CPU socket is the location where a CPU is secured on the motherboard. A socket is what allows the processor to communicate with the rest of the computer. Sockets make it very easy to install and remove CPU's. Each CPU generation will require a specific socket type. The motherboard and the processor must use the same socket.

Intel's Socket Types:
LGA 1150 - Used by Haswell CPUs (4th Generation i3, i5 and i7's)
LGA 1155 - Used by Sandy Bridge (2nd Generation i3, i5 and i7's) and Ivy Bridge CPUs (3rd Generation i3, i5 and i7's)
LGA 2011 - Used by high end i7's

AMD's Socket Types:
AM3+ Used by Vishera, Zambezi and other CPU's
FM1 Used by Llano CPU's
FM2 Used by Trinity and Richland CPU's

Hyperthreading Definition

Hyperthreading is a technique used by Intel to help with multitasking. It makes every physical core act as two logical cores or "threads". This means that a dual core will have four threads and a quad core will have eight total. Every thread is good at doing its own task. How does the CPU accomplish this? It does this by making certain parts of the CPU work more often that would normally be underutilized. This can nearly double performance in highly optimized situations. More realistically though, it only improves performance marginally.

CPU Definition

A CPU is the central processing unit. It does the most critical thinking for the computer. This workload can be divided between a number of "cores". A CPU's speed is measured in gigahertz or GHz. Click here for a more in depth explanation of a CPU.

CPU Video Tutorial

What's a Motherboard?

The motherboard may seem like the most intimidating part of the whole computer. This is the largest chip that is fastened into the computer case. Everything that is part of a computer goes through this chip. Despite its complex look, there are only a few things you need to know about it.

Most of what you need to know is where the CPU, RAM and expansion slots are located. Everything else is either explained in the motherboard's owners manual or you can find it online.

The main purpose of a motherboard is to provide a way for all the computer parts to communicate. Not all the ports will have something plugged into them in the end. They are there so you can expand your computer's capabilities as you need to. When you are trying to figure out where to plug something in, don't ever force it. Most devices should be able to settle into the ports with just a little pressure and a lot wiggling back and forth.

CPU's are simple to match your motherboard. Your motherboard should state someway in the details what CPU socket type it has. Some examples of socket names are LGA 775, LGA 1155, LGA 1366, AM2, AM3, AM3+ or FM1. Memorizing these names is not important. All you need to make sure of is that the socket type listed on the motherboard matches the socket type listed on the CPU.

RAM is probably the easiest to upgrade. RAM slots can be easily identified because they are the only slots that have clips at the ends of them. Simply pull the clips open and wiggle the stick of RAM into the slot. Then close the clips into the ridges of the RAM so it solidly fits in. It is usually best to choose the slots closest to the CPU to reduce latency (delay between transfers). The motherboard's owners manual should have specific instructions on the best way to place the different components.

Expansion slots are a little more complicated than RAM but are still relatively easy to figure out. Expansion slots are always on the side of the motherboard that faces the back of the case. This makes it easy to add various plugins behind the case. These slots are either called PCI, AGP or PCI Express slots. PCI is an old standard and is still built into most motherboards. However, it is quickly being replaced by PCI express. The older PCI slot is pictured third from the right on the motherboard above. Older PCI slots are positioned a little closer to the edge of the motherboard. AGP was a faster port than the older PCI but has been replaced by PCI express.

The most advanced port right now is PCI express. All PCI express slots are aligned so they are flush on the side closest to the edge of the motherboard. You will see them at a variety of lengths. (PCI express x1, x4, x8 or x16) The number represents how many lanes are physically there to transfer data. PCI express x1 is the smallest slot in the picture above. This can be used for a large variety of purposes such as adding additional network functionality or more USB ports. PCI express x16 is another popular slot. It is mostly used for video cards because of its huge bandwidth. PCI express x16 is the largest slot in the picture above.

We are now in an age where regular PCI express x16 doesn't provide enough bandwidth to meet demands. Since then, the slot has been upgraded to PCI express 2.0 and currently is up to 3.0. PCI express 1.0 could handle speeds up to 4 GB's per second. 2.0 doubled that to 8 GB's per second and 3.0 now allows 16 GB's per second. This speed is necessary for handling the latest complex games. Each version is backwards compatible with the previous.

Overall, the motherboard is there to provide a way for everything to communicate. When searching for a motherboard, make sure you filter your results so you only see motherboards that have the ports you want.

Choosing a Good CPU

A CPU is the central processing unit. It does most of the calculations for a computer.

For a lot of people, the CPU is the most important and expensive part of their computer. The two main companies that make desktop CPU's are Intel and AMD. The picture below shows a real world example of what you would see if you were searching for a CPU online. This example came from a website called Newegg. But what does this all mean? We'll break it down so you'll be able to buy a CPU yourself.

This particular example is an Intel i5 processor. The entire part that says "Intel Core i5-2500 Sandy Bridge" is just a name. This tells us that this processor is made by Intel and is part of the i3/i5/i7 family. The name "Sandy Bridge" is just an architecture of this family.

Next, you will find that this processor is rated to run at 3.3GHz or gigahertz as shown in the picture above. This is the way to measure the speed of a processor. The higher this number, the faster the computer will calculate. Generally, most modern computers will be clocked anywhere from 2.5 to 5 GHz. We will discuss turbo boosting in another article.

Next, it says LGA 1155. This part is very important. It tells you this CPU's socket type. CPU sockets are found on the motherboard of a computer. Make sure the CPU and the motherboard have the same socket name.

95W tells you how much power the CPU is rated to use. The CPU will rarely reach this amount. However, knowing how much power your computer uses is important when deciding how large of a power supply to get.

The fact that this CPU is a quad-core processor is very significant. More cores allow the user to do multitasking quicker. Older computers use to only have one core. This made it difficult to multitask quickly. Later, the duel core processor was invented. This means that if a computer runs at 2.5 GHz, it will have two physical "cores" or sections of the CPU that would each run at 2.5 GHz. This doesn't mean that the CPU is 5 GHz. Think of it more like 2.5 GHz doing one thing plus 2.5 GHz doing another. The i5 we are examining is a quad-core. This means that it has four separate cores that each run at 3.3 GHz. If we were using this i5 and opened a program, one of the cores would work at running that program while the other cores would stay idle waiting for something to do. Nowadays, more and more programs and applications are designed so they utilize all of the cores at once so none of the cores will be idle. In the end, the only way to really know how well a CPU will perform is by checking out benchmarks at places like Tom's Hardware or Passmark.