The PC Buyer's Guide Glossary

A

ACPI - Advanced Configuration and Power Interface specification.  See http://www.acpi.info/ for details.

AGP – Accelerated Graphics Port. A slot found on all Super7 and Slot 1 motherboards designed to provide high-performance graphics when a suitable AGP graphics card is connected. AGP graphics cards are particularly well-suited to today’s advanced games. No current computer has more than one AGP port. ATI, Matrox, Creative Labs, Hercules, Leadtek and Asus are among the leading vendors providing state-of-the-art AGP graphics cards. Some graphics cards are said to support "AGP 1X." This is basically a 66 MHz PCI variant; better cards support AGP 2X, for enhanced texture handling. Note, however, that an AGP 1.0 connector on a motherboard can support AGP 2X. "AGP 4X," with still higher performance, emerged in late 1999, with the release of the i820 "Camino" chipset from Intel and support from products such as the Matrox G400. There was also an AGP Pro variant and, most recently, AGP 8x and, of course, plans for faster architectures beyond that. Intel is working on a high-speed bus spec it calls "Araphoe;" AMD is working on a competing spec called "HyperTransport."

AMD K6 2-3D – Prior to the release of the K6-III (below), the K6-2 was the best performing member of the Pentium-compatible family of Socket 7 processors. This processor, developed by Advanced Micro Devices, is pin-compatible with Intel’s original Pentium (not the Pentium II) and is best paired with PC100 SDRAM and a so-called Super 7 (Socket 7 with 100 MHz bus) motherboard. Additionally, the K6-2's proprietary "3DNow!" instructions enhance the performance of specially written games and some other software titles. See also: PC100; Super 7.

AMD K6-III -- a higher-performance version of the K6-2, thanks to a so-called "Tri-level" cache design and improved manufacturing process. The K6-III is roughly comparable in performance to the Pentium II. The K6 chips have largely been superseded by low-cost AMD Duron or Intel Celeron processors, which offer better performance at comparable prices. As such, AMD has discontinued the manufacture of the K6 family of processors.

AMD Opteron – AMD's answer to the Intel Itanium 2. Opteron is a 64-bit processor with a 32-bit compatible mode that allows existing x86 programs to run unchanged. Opteron began shipping in Q2 of 2003.

Anti-aliasing – A method of reducing "jaggies" on the screen by using intermediate gray or colour values to subtly blur the rough stair-step edges. See also: Jaggies, FSAA.

ATA – Advanced Technology Attachment is the official name that American National Standards Institute group X3T10 uses for what the computer industry calls Integrated Drive Electronics. See also: IDE.

ATA33 – older hard drive connection/data transfer standard, supported by 1998-era and earlier mainboards, and currently used on better CD writers. The "33" signifies the number of megabytes per second that can be achieved at maximum (theoretical) throughput.

ATA66 – A hard drive connection/data transfer standard popular during 1999 and 2000, supported by 1998-era and newer mainboards. 66MB/sec maximum theoretical throughput. ATA66 drives are backward-compatible with ATA33 controllers.

ATA100 – A hard drive connection/data transfer standard popular during 1999 through 2001, supported by most 2000-era and newer mainboards. 100MB/sec. max. speeds. Backward compatible with ATA33 and ATA66 controllers.

ATA133 – ATA 133 is a Maxtor-promoted "standard" that supports drives larger than 128 GB (or 136.9 GB in base 10 numbers). If you install a very large drive on a ATA 66 or ATA 100 bus, it will only be partially recognized. See the press release on the Maxtor site for details. (Read more....)

ATX – A recent type of motherboard design primarily notable for its "soft power" switch that allows the computer to be shut down and (apparently) turned off by using the shutdown command on the Windows start menu. ATX motherboards are currently the most popular design for Slot 1 and Socket 7 type processors. An ATX motherboard requires a case with an ATX power supply. Pentium 4 processors require a wider variant of ATX case known as ATX 2.03. See also: Slot 1, Socket 7, Micro-ITX.

B

BIOS. Basic Input/Output System. A "Firmware" program residing in an EPROM chip or "Flash memory," designed to provide basic functionality to the device onto which it is installed. See also: CMOS, Firmware, Flash Memory

BitTorrent – A file distribution protocol used to distribute large files to multiple points without extraordinary bandwidth demands on the source. The main difference between BitTorrent and Kaaza is: BitTorrent is not an anonymous fileshare program. There is always a single point of distribution, thus a single person that can be tracked down to have started it. [The program's explains...]

Bluetooth - A short-range (10 metres or less) wireless protocol borrowing its name from the 10th-century Viking King Harald Bluetooth, who united Nordic nations under one religion.

BX or "BX based" – Refers to a motherboard based on Intel's 1999-2000 era 440BX chipset. BX motherboards, with a suitable CPU, are capable of supporting a bus speed of 100 MHz (and sometimes more, unofficially). The "LX" and "EX" chipsets and their predecessors, by comparison, are designed for a 66 MHz bus. BX boards (and their successors) are compatible with Intel Pentium III processors. A few notable limitations of the BX chipset include their inability to support FSB speeds over 100 MHz without "overclocking" the AGP graphics functions, and the lack of support for recent AGP 8x graphics cards.

C

Camino - The i820 chipset delivered in late 1999 from Intel that supports a number of next-generation features such as faster RAMBUS memory, UDMA/66 hard drives, faster bus speeds, AGP support at 100+ MHz FSB speeds, and so on. Camino is also the name of a Web browser for the Macintosh.

CD-RW – Compact Disc Recordable/Rewritable. These drives, which start at prices about $50, can record 650 - 700 megabytes of data onto inexpensive ($.50 or less) CD-R discs, and can write and erase data from more expensive ($2-3) CD-RW discs. Anybody with a standard CD-ROM drive (i.e., almost everybody) can read a CD-R disc, but only those with a relatively recent "MultiRead" variety of CD-ROM (or another CD-RW writer) can read CD-RW discs produced by these drives.

Celeron – Intel’s first crack at an inexpensive Slot 1 processor. It lacked a so-called Level 2 ("L2") cache, which significantly impeded its performance – especially in business applications such as word processing, spreadsheets and other everyday computing tasks. A newer "Celeron-A" design addresses this limitation by providing an L2 cache. Although the Celeron-A has less cache than a Pentium II (128K vs. 512K), the Celeron-A's cache runs at twice the speed, which helps improve performance to within a few percentage points of the more expensive Pentium II equivalent. Slot 1 motherboards expressly designed for Celeron processors are designated as "EX," although a Celeron or Celeron-A can be used with most LX or BX motherboards as well. We recommend the latter (and skip the original Celeron and go for a Celeron-A if possible). To further confuse the issue, Intel, in Jan. 99, released a so-called PPGA (plastic pin grid array) version of the Celeron, a new ZX chipset designed to be used with PPGA-compatible Socket 370 motherboards and stopped identifying all Celerons faster than 300 MHz with an "A" designation, despite the inclusion of the above-mentioned 128K of L2 cache. Celeron chips are not intended for use in multiprocessor systems but can, with some hardware modifications, be adapted for this purpose. In early 2001, Intel began shipping Celerons supporting a 100 MHz front side bus; the so-called Celeron 2 chips also support the SSE multimedia instructions once touted as a key enhancement of the Pentium III.  See also: PPGA, Socket 370, Slot 1, SECC, CPU, SSE.

Celeron 2/Coppermine 128 – Intel in Feb. 2000, announced the Celeron 2, also known as Coppermine 128. Models under 800 MHz in speed maintained the 66 MHz FSB limitation and 128K cache of its predecessor; newer chips support a 100 MHZ FSB. All Celeron 2 chips provide support for the SIMD (SSE) multimedia instructions found in the Pentium III. See also: SIMD, SSE.

Celeron (Pentium 4 type) – At this writing, the most recent Celeron chips are based on a 478-pin pin-grid design compatible with (Socket 478) Pentium 4 mainboards. By Q2 of 2003, clock speeds as high as 2.4 GHz are available. As with earlier Celeron designs, the chips have less onboard cache than P4 chips, and a slower Front Side Bus speed. At this writing, Celerons have 128K of on-chip cache and a 400 MHz FSB.

CMOS - Complimentary Metal-Oxide Semiconductor. In the context of today's PCs, the CMOS is the computer's built-in Setup program. It is called "CMOS Setup" because the computer's configuration or setup is stored in a CMOS chip. See also: BIOS.

Coppermine - At this writing, the preferred version of the Pentium III, this version uses a more efficient manufacturing process, features on-board cache memory running at the full speed of the processor (as opposed to the half-speed design of earlier PII and PIII models) and uses a different "Flip Chip" design. See also: FC-PGA.

CPU – Central Processing Unit. Examples (in roughly ascending order of performance) include Pentium, Pentium with MMX, Cyrix M2, AMD K6, Celeron, K6-2, K6-III, Cyrix III, Pentium II, Celeron-A, Celeron 2, Duron, Pentium III, Athlon, Thunderbird, Pentium 4. In the Mac market, the Power PC 750 processor (sometimes listed as "G3") is a popular CPU found in iMac computers. Apple's high-end models feature the more powerful G4 processor(s).

Cyrix M2 - Least expensive and lowest performing member of the Pentium-compatible family of Socket 7 processors. See also AMD.

Cyrix III - a Socket 370 processor from VIA with 133 MHz FSB support. Cyrix III is pin-compatible with Intel's Celeron. Although less powerful, it runs cooler than Intel or AMD chips and is thus used in devices where low (or no) fan noise is desirable.

D

Daemon – A process running in the background on your machine. Named after "attendant spirits," according to The Jargon File. The name has been rationalized as an acronym for Disk And Execution MONitors.

DIMM - Dual inline memory module. A type of memory common in Super7 and Pentium II motherboards. DIMMs can be added one at a time. Consult your system's manual to ensure the right type of memory -- there are many varieties. See also: SIMM, PC100.

DDC - Display Data Channel. A VESA standard for communication between a monitor and a video adapter. Using DDC, a monitor can inform the video card about its properties, such as maximum resolution and color depth. The video card can then use this information to ensure that the user is presented with valid options for configuring the display.

DDR SDRAM -- double rate SDRAM doubles the bandwidth of SDRAM in a similar fashion to the way AGP 2x did with AGP. Some motherboards, such as the Asus A7A266, can accept both SDRAM and DDR RAM. However, the RAM sockets are not identical. These mainboards, therefore require two different types of RAM sockets. The naming system (e.g., PC2100, etc.), incidentally, is based on the bandwidth. The bandwidth is found by multiplying the effective frequency (which in the case of DDR is twice the number of clock cycles of standard SDRAM) by the width of the memory (in the case of SDRAM this is 64 bit) and dividing the result by the number of bits per byte, which is always 8. Thus, PC2100 is 266 x 64 / 8, or 2128. See 3DSpotlight's DDR SDRAM shoot out for more details.

D.P or "Dot pitch" – A term used to describe the distance between picture elements on a monitor. Smaller dot pitches, in general, yield better picture quality. Sony Trinitron monitors use a different system (technically known as an "aperture grille") that is roughly equivalent to a .25 dot pitch. Cheaper monitors may have dot pitch values of .28 or even higher.

Duron - AMD's least expensive member of the Athlon family, Duron hold a comparable market position to Intel's Celeron at the low end of the market.

DVD – Digital Versatile Disc. In a computer context, this term typically refers to DVD-ROM drives that play, but cannot record DVD discs such as movies or still-scarce multimedia DVD titles. So-called "third generation" DVD-ROM drives (sometimes listed as DVD-3) are faster than their predecessors. We’d recommend at least a five-speed ("5x") unit. Creative Labs is considered the DVD market leader, with its PC-DVD Encore products.

DVD-R - Recordable DVD format endorsed by Pioneer, Compaq, Apple, etc.

DVD+RW - Rewritable DVD format endorsed by HP, Sony, Yamaha, etc.

dpi – dots per inch. An inexact method of judging printers. Use your eyes (and, when considering performance claims, a  stopwatch) instead.

E

EDO – Extended Data Out. An older type of memory typically used in now-obsolete Socket 7 motherboards. Some Super7 boards can use EDO memory, but many cannot. Consult your system's manual to ensure the right type of memory -- they are many varieties. EDO is not capable of running under 100MHz FSB. If BX boards run under 66MHz FSB, EDO can be used. See also: SIMM, FSB.

EIDE – Enhanced IDE. The enhanced version of IDE that is now standard on all PCs. Usually used interchangeably with the term "IDE." A maximum of four IDE devices can be connected to your PC's two internal IDE connectors: a primary master and slave (e.g., hard drive, CD-ROM) and one or two secondary channel devices (e.g., two more hard drives), which must also be configured as master and/or slave. High-performance devices are generally best configured as a "master."

EPROM – electrically programmable read-only memory chip.

EEPROM – erasable, electrically programmable read-only memory chip. See also: Flash Memory

ESCD (extended system config. data): A four-kilobyte area of memory at hexadecimal offset 1D000h-1DFFFh. This area is used as NVRAM for PNP BIOS and PNP OS. Intel's ICU also uses ESCD to store information for PNP ISA cards and legacy ISA cards. Typically, you can choose to update ESCD (or not) by setting a BIOS option from the menu of "CMOS Setup" choices accessible at startup time.

F

FC-PGA - Intel's "Flip Chip" pin grid array design, used for the Coppermine line of CPUs. These CPUs are designed with a lower voltage, making an adapter such as the CPU Converter card from MSI (etc.) or a new motherboard necessary. Intel Celerons 533A and newer (AKA "Coppermine 128") also use this design.

FireWire – Sometimes called IEEE 1394 or "i.LINK," FireWire is a relatively fast digital input/output system, providing transfer rates of up to 400 megabits per second. FireWire is built into some new computer models from Apple and SGI and is available, via an add-on card, for most others. FireWire is a recommended I/O system on machines conforming to the PC99 spec and FireWire is becoming a standard feature on sound cards (e.g., Creative Labs' Audigy) and a growing number of inexpensive add-on cards. Faster 800Mbps and 1600 Mbps variants of FireWire are also in the works.

Firmware – a form of software designed to reside in an electrically programmable read-only memory ("EPROM") chip. See also: EEPROM.

Flash Memory – any one of a variety of different types of erasable, electrically programmable read-only memory chips or plug-in cards, used in digital cameras, MP3 players and many other devices. See also: EEPROM, SSFDC

Free -- An overused term, generally describing one of two things: Free as in "free speech" (i.e., without restrictions, or “free as in beer,” referring specifically to cost.

FSAA – Full-scene Anti-aliasing. A feature of some new graphics chips and/or software programs designed to smooth "jaggies," FSAA is a feature on the 3dfx Voodoo5, ATI Radeon, nVIDIA GeForce 2, GeForce 3, and other advanced graphics chips.

FSB – Front Side Bus. The term properly used to describe (external clock) bus speed, as in 66MHz FSB, or 100 MHz FSB. The fastest bus speed officially supported on Pentium III-based PCs is 133 Megahertz. Pentium 4 and 1.7 GHz (and faster) Celerons support a 400 MHz bus; the latest Pentium 4 models extend bus speeds as high as 533 MHz. See also: BX

G

GPU - Graphics Processing Unit. The processor on a graphics card.

H

Hexadecimal: base 16. The numbering system goes as follows 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,A,B,C,D,E,F,10,11,etc., where F would equal 15 in base 10.

Hydraulic bearings  – Used on the certain drives from Seagate (Barracuda IV), IBM and the latest high-speed Maxtor models, hydraulic bearings run quieter, cooler and, most probably, longer than "traditional" bearings on standard hard drives.

I

IDE – Integrated Drive Electronics. The method by which most hard drives, internal CD-ROM drives, and other internal storage devices are connected to a computer. Today’s better hard drives are referred to as UDMA or Ultra ATA (two ways of saying the same thing), but they are still IDE-based. Some high-performance systems use SCSI drives instead of those connected via IDE. See also: EIDE, UDMA.

ISA – Industry Standard Architecture. A semi-obsolete type of expansion slot used for connecting internal expansion cards  including, but not limited to, modems, sound cards (the non-PCI variety, obviously) and so on. ISA devices tend to be more trouble-prone than their PCI cousins, and ISA slots cannot share IRQs as PCI can. ISA is not part of the PC99 specification most computer manufacturers are expected to adhere to in the years ahead. Our recommendation is to avoid ISA add-ons if possible. Most motherboards no longer offer ISA slots.

Itanium – Intel's first 64-bit processor, shipped in limited quantities in the second half of 2000. This chip was previously code-named "Merced."

Itanium 2 – Intel's follow-up to the Itanium, supported by Windows XP 64-bit Edition, Windows Server 2003 64-bit Edition, and various other operating systems. Shipping in 2003-2004. See also: AMD Opteron.

IEEE - the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, an international engineering standards organization.

IEEE 1394 - See FireWire.

IEEE 802.11a - A 54 Mbps wireless local area network (WLAN) protocol. 802.11a is not compatible with either 802.11b or the new 802.11g standard, given that it operates within the 5 gigahertz range rather than 2.4 gigahertz like its uniformly labeled cousins. 802.11a is capable of a whopping 72Mbits of data per second in its "turbo mode."

IEEE 802.11b - the dominant wireless local area network (WLAN) protocol adopted by Apple and many leading PC manufacturers.

IEEE 802.11e - Emerging "GigaWire" 54Mbps wireless LAN standard optimized for AV streaming. See also: www.1394ta.org

IEEE 802.11g - Supports transfer rates up up to 54 megabits/sec, while maintaining backward compatibility with existing 802.11b equipment. Not as popular as 802.11a.

J

Jaggies - Thin diagonal lines on computer screens betray the graphics system's limited resolution by showing a "stair step" effect. These jagged lines are known as jaggies and can be solved by means of Anti Aliasing. See FSAA for details.

K

Katmai – The code name for Intel's Pentium III processor, released in late Feb. 1999.

Kbps - Kilobits per second. Usually used to express modem speeds. A 28.8Kbps modem theoretically transfers around 3 Kilobytes per second, as there are 8 bits per byte. For comparison, so-called cable modems or ADSL "asynchronous digital subscriber line" technologies can transfer files at maximum speeds about 100 times faster.

L

LX – An abbreviation of the Intel chipset officially named "440LX." This chipset is found on older Pentium II (Slot 1) motherboard designs, utilizing a 66 MHz bus. Motherboards based on the LX chipset are not compatible with the Pentium III (and the chipset cannot be upgraded independently of the motherboard).

M

MB - megabytes. In hard disks, one megabyte is considered to be 1,000,000 bytes (characters). In most other computer contexts, a megabytes is equivalent to 1024x1024.

Mb - Megabit, sometimes written as Mbit. One Megabit is one-eighth of one Megabyte. Thus, 400 Mbps = 50 MB/sec.

MHz – Megahertz. Millions of cycles per second. Typically used in this context to describe the speed of a computer’s CPU, as in "K6-2/300 MHz." MHz only measures internal clock speed, not application performance. Many factors affect application performance. Speeds greater than 1000 MHz are usually referred to as GHz (Gigahertz).

Micro-ITX – A miniature motherboard specification designed for so-called "book" PCs. Typically, these PCs are less expandable and run very quietly.

MMX – multimedia extensions added to the Pentium instruction set, used by Intel, Cyrix and AMD processors to enhance video playback and graphics performance. All Pentium II, Pentium III and Celeron processors also include MMX capabilities.

Motherboard – the mainboard that contains the circuitry and expansion slots that, with the addition of a suitable CPU and memory, forms the heart of a computer. See also: BX, LX

MVA (multidomain vertical alignment) – a superior LCD-TFT technology, with faster screen refresh (usually around 10 milliseconds to light up; 15 to go dark), better brightness and contrast than standard TFT technologies. See also: LCD, TFT.

N

ns (nanosecond) – a billionth of a second. Typically used used in this context as a measurement of RAM speed. See also: PC100.

Northwood - Intel code name for an advanced Pentium 4 processor design hitting the market in early 2002 at clock speeds of 1.6GHz and beyond. Using a .13 micron fabrication process, it delivers performance roughly comparable to a similarly clocked Athlon XP. The 1.6GHz and 1.8GHz chips are favorites of overclocking enthusiasts.

NVRAM – Non-volatile Random Access Memory.

O

OEM – Original equipment manufacturer. When seen in a computer ad (e.g., "Sound Blaster OEM"), this generally means a lower-cost product that does not come in a retail box, usually lacking in manuals, bundled software and other accessories.

Opteron -- AMD's server-oriented 64-bit chip, code named "Clawhammer." Released in 2003.

P

PC99  – A standard computer specification set out by Intel, Microsoft and other computer industry manufacturers. The PC99 spec calls for the elimination of often-troublesome ISA slots, minimum processor speeds for desktop systems of 300 MHz, and a minimum 64MB of RAM. The required absence of ISA slots in the spec means that few of today's motherboards are fully PC99 compliant.

PC100 – A computer industry designation for a special type of SDRAM (Synchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory) designed for use in computers with a 100 MHz bus. If a system includes a motherboard designated as "Super7" or "BX," be sure that includes PC100 SDRAM (or faster) for maximum reliability and performance.

PC133 – Computers designed for use with a 133 MHz FSB require this faster (and consequently more expensive) memory. PC133 memory can also be used with slower 100.

PC2100, PC2700, etc. -- Other memory specs. See DDR for more details.

PCI – an acronym for "Peripheral Component Interconnect," this style of expansion slot is easier to configure than the older ISA variety, and generally provides better performance. For fewer computer hassles, try to avoid ISA add-on cards for sound cards and other interfaces and go for PCI cards instead. On this note, look for a system with plenty of unused PCI slots.

PCI Express – an emerging (2004/2005) standard for high-speed graphics, likely to result in a 20% boost over 2003-era AGP 8x performance. The standard, supported by ATI and other vendors, delivers better power management, bi-directional simultaneous I/O and 4GB/s bandwidth.

PCI-X  – enhanced PCI spec with 133MB/sec max. transfer rates. Used in Apple's 2003 G5 towers, and geared towards servers/workstations.

Pentium II – Intel’s successor to the "Pentium" processor, requires a "Slot 1" motherboard – a different type of design than that used by the original Pentium or AMD chip designs. Older Pentium II processors supported a 66 megahertz "bus" (external clock) speed. Newer models (starting with the Pentium II/350) support a 100 megahertz bus. Slot 1 motherboards that support this faster bus are typically known as "BX" motherboards. Older "LX" motherboards officially support 66 MHz bus speeds only. See also: BX, LX, Katmai.

Pentium IIPE – The "PE" stands for "Performance Enhanced" in the new Pentium II and Celeron processors for portable computers announced by Intel on Jan. 25th, 1999. Like the PPGA versions of the Celeron released in Jan. 1999, these chips have the L2 cache integrated on the main processor, instead of being separate, as they are in the "Slot 1" versions of these processors. Integrating the cache improves performance and allows the chip package to be smaller.

Pentium III – An Intel "Slot 1" family processor that includes 70 multimedia instructions (known as SSE, or Streaming SIMD extensions) not found in the Pentium II. Newer Pentium IIIE processors are also known as "Coppermine."

Pentium 4 – An Intel family processor, including SSE instructions. The chip's longer instruction pipeline, predictive branching and other design attributes perform somewhat worse than PIII processors at low clock speeds, but the P4 scales more effectively to higher clock speeds than its predecessors. There are several related chips, aimed at mobile (Pentium 4-M, Centrino, etc.) and low-cost platforms, as well as high-end Xeon family processors with additional on-chip cache.

P2P - Peer to peer. Usually referring to a file-sharing system in which computers connect to each other (as "peers") without a centralized server.

PNP - plug and play.

PPGA (Plastic Pin Grid Array). Also known as Socket 370. A socket found on motherboards designed for Intel's low-cost PGA Socket 370 Celeron processors. PGA Celerons can also be used in Slot 1 motherboards, with the addition of a Socket 370-to-Slot 1 adapter card, such as the Abit "Slotket."

PS/2 port – one or two such ports are typically found on desktop and portable PCs. A keyboard and/or mouse can be connected here. Not found on some newer PCs, which typically provide USB ports for connecting keyboards and mice (etc.) instead.

Q

Quantum - Hard drive manufacturer now owned by Maxtor.

R

RAID - See www.raid5.com for details.

RDRAM - Also known as RAMbus memory. Bandwith is limited to 1.6 GB/s due to the design's small 16-bit bus. DDR SDRAM provides similar performance with lower latency. The memory chips themselves are sometimes called RIMMs.

RSS – Rich Site Summary. A text file formatted to the XML (eXtensible Markup Language) standard. Commonly used by websites (such as this one) to syndicate news headlines. Freely downloadable RSS newsreaders are available for all computer platforms.

S

SATA – Serial ATA. A high-speed hard drive standard on some 2003 and later PCs. With a max. (theoretical) throughput of about 150MB/sec., it is slightly faster than ATA133. See also: ATA.

SCSI – Small Computer Systems Interface. Now available in several varieties, including "narrow," "wide," "Ultra wide" and "Ultra2," SCSI drives are popular among digital video and audio recording enthusiasts, or those running high-powered network servers, who typically demand the fastest hard drives. SCSI is also commonly used to connect scanners, CD recorders, tape backup units and other external storage devices. Some motherboards have SCSI onboard. The fastest variety of Ultra160 SCSI supports transfer rates up to 160MB/sec. Ultra2 LVD (low voltage differential) SCSI supports transfer rates of up to 80MB/sec.

SDRAM – Synchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory. Computer memory. Faster is better (and more expensive). Be sure that BX- or Super7-class systems come with PC100 SDRAM for maximum performance and future upgradeability. Note, however, that older mainboards (LX chipsets and earlier, which used a 66 MHz Front Side Bus) usually don't work reliably with PC133 memory and may require PC66 SDRAM. See also: DDR SDRAM.

SECC  – Single Edge Contact Cartridge. The large metal and plastic cartridge that holds a Pentium II or Pentium III. These cartridges fit into a Single Edge Contact (SEC), popularly known as Slot 1. See also: Slot 1.

SEPP – Single Edge Processor Package. Essentially, an SECC without the cartridge. This term is used to describe the form factor of Slot 1 Celeron processors. See also: Slot 1, Celeron.

SIMD  -- Single Instruction, Multiple Data. A type of CPU design that allows a single instruction to work with multiple pieces of data at once, so they can do several things at once. Each path through an instruction is called a vector. Thus, these are sometimes called Vector Processors. Intel's Pentium III includes SIMD capabilities. See also: SSE, SSE2

SIMM – Single inline memory module. A type of memory found in some Super7 motherboards (but not Pentium II systems). SIMMs must be added two at a time. Consult your system's manual to ensure the right type of memory -- there are many varieties, including EDO, which provides a modest boost over "standard" Dynamic RAM on systems that support it. See also: DIMM, EDO, PC100.

Slot 1 – The type of slot, sometimes known as an SEC (single edge contact) or SEPP, on a motherboard a Pentium II or Pentium III processor fits into. SEC Celeron processors also fit this slot. Adapter boards are available, allowing the use of normally incompatible Socket 370 processors, as well.

Slot 2 – The type of slot on a motherboard a Xeon processor fits into. Adapter boards are available, allowing the use of normally incompatible Slot One processors. See also: Xeon.

"Slotket" – An adapter designed to allow a Slot 1 motherboard to accept FC-PGA and/or Socket 370 processor[s].

S.M.A.R.T (Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology) – S.M.A.R.T. helps manage the reliability of the hard drive by alerting the system when problems and a high degree of errors are detected. The system can then alert users on taking actions to avoid a system failure. S.M.A.R.T. enables a drive's status to be monitored through diagnostics designed into the hard drive's circuitry. These diagnostics can be used for logging and data protection. This feature is used in conjunction with compatible hard drives and diagnostic software utilities that support the technology.

SMIL – Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language. A standard method for synchronizing media types (movies, web pages, etc.) on the web.

Socket A – The type of socket that fits AMD's Pin Grid Array Duron or Athlon XP (etc.) series chips.

Socket 370 – The type of socket that Intel's PPGA (Plastic Pin Grid Array) Celeron 366 (or newer) processor fits. This socket looks superficially similar to, but is electrically and physically different than, a Socket 7. The PPGA Celeron has, as the socket name implies, 370 pins. Most Celeron processors slower than 466 MHz are also available in slightly more expensive SEPP versions.

Socket 7, Super 7 – Motherboards designed for "Socket 7" processors such as the Cyrix M2, AMD K6 and K6-2, and Intel's Pentium or Pentium with MMX processors. Super7 boards support 100 MHz bus speeds, enhancing performance of chips such as the AMD K6-2. Better Super7 boards have 1 megabytes of cache, which improves performance over the 512K found in inexpensive models.

Socket 8 - The type of socket that Intel's now-discontinued Pentium Pro processor fits into.

Socket 423  – now obsolete, this is the Pentium 4 socket specification used in the original P4 models.

Socket 478  – Intel's second-generation Pentium 4 socket specification, also used by 1.7GHz and faster Celerons.

Solano – Intel's i815 chipset, used in some computers shipped after June 2000. The i815 features 133MHz FSB support. See also: FSB.

SSFDC  – Solid State Floppy Disc Card. A type of Flash Memory also known as "Smart Media" although, technically, it is not smart, as it has no processor.

SSE – Streaming SIMD (Single Instruction, Multiple Data) Extensions. 70 new instructions in Pentium III processors that are Intel's answer to the 3Dnow! instructions in AMD’s popular K6-2.

SSE2 – Streaming SIMD (Single Instruction, Multiple Data) Extensions for the Pentium 4. Instruction set extensions designed to accelerate multimedia data transfers in Pentium 4 and Celeron 1.7GHz and higher processors. Useful for audio or video encoding, etc.

SVG – An Adobe-authored, W3C recommended standard for handling two-dimensional vector graphics (similar but not identical to Macromedia's proprietary "Flash" format) on the Web.

T

Timna  – The code name for Intel's failed successor to the Celeron processor, originally expected in early 2001, but later canceled. The Timna processor was to have been be a low-cost CPU with an onboard graphics controller, making it most suitable for use in low-cost, limited expandability PCs.

3DNow - See the section at the end of this document.

U

UDMA – Ultra direct memory access. A hard drive specification that provides up to 33MB/sec transfer rates from inexpensive mass storage devices connected to the EIDE bus. UDMA requires a supported motherboard (or UDMA controller card add-on), a UDMA-compatible drive, and a supported operating system (e.g., Windows 98). An updated version of the specification, known as UDMA/66, available since mid-1999, provides performance comparable to much more expensive Ultra Wide SCSI 2 drives, with up to 66MB/sec transfer rates. The BX chipset does not support UDMA/66, although some motherboards from Abit (BE-6, BP-6, etc.) and a few other motherboard manufacturers added UDMA/66 support to this chipset themselves (and, with it, introduced some compatibility problems, too). The generation of motherboards based on the i820, i840, VIA Pro 133 or later chipsets (or add-on UDMA/66 controller cards) is the best way to take full advantage of UDMA/66 devices. The 66 MHz variety was supplanted in recent years by UDMA/100 and, most recently, by a spec pioneered by Maxtor known as UDMA/133. As the name implies, UDMA/133 supports data transfer rates up to 133MB/sec.

UDMA 2 = ATA 33

UDMA 4 = ATA 66

UDMA 5 = ATA 100

UDMA 6 = ATA 133. See also: SATA

USB – Universal Serial Bus. Typically located on the back of the computer near the expansion bay area (and sometimes accessible through one or more front-mounted ports, too), USB ports provide an easy way to connect USB-compatible peripherals such as scanners, cameras, joysticks, mice and keyboards (etc.). To connect more than two USB devices, you will have to add an item with more ports known as a USB hub. Generally, "powered" USB hubs provide better compatibility with cameras and other USB devices than do inexpensive unpowered hubs. The 12Mbps USB 1.1 spec is officially referred to as "full-speed" USB; devices not described in this way may operate at a slower 1.5Mbps. Note that in Dec. 2002, the USB Forum sneakily renamed  USB 1.1 as USB 2, to take advantage of consumer demand for USB 2.0 devices. USB 2.0, meanwhile, was re-designated "Hi-speed USB."

USB 2.0 - a faster variant of USB, officially known as "Hi-speed USB," providing transfer speeds up to 480 Mbps. Announced in April 2000, the spec finally started to reach mainsteam motherboards and PCs in mid-2002. Cables are backwards compatible with USB 1.1. In real-world use, USB 2.0 is a little slower than 400 Mbps FireWire.

V

v.i.s. – The visible image surface area of a monitor. Sometimes referred to as VIA, or viewable image area.

W

Willamette - The successor to the PIII, officially known as the Pentium 4. Announced in June 2000, the first models (available in late 2000) ran at speeds above 1 Gigahertz (1000 Megahertz). By the Fall of 2001, speeds of 2 GHz were available.

Wi-Fi - Coined by an industry group known as the Wi-Fi Consortium and considered by many a meaningless marketing term, Wi-Fi is the term generally used to refer to 802.11b wireless gear.

X

Xeon – Intel's highest-performing member of the Pentium II/Pentium III family of processors. Xeon processors deliver higher performance at comparable clock speeds and are, as you might expect, considerably more expensive than Pentium II or Pentium III chips. Xeon chips are also better-suited for use in multiprocessor systems than their less-expensive siblings. The Xeon was phased out in the second half of 2000 (Intel dropped its 800 MHz model in July 2000), as the gap between Xeon and Intel's fastest Pentium III models (and forthcoming Itanium processor) diminished its market position.

Y

YUV - Seen in some video capture settings.

Z

Zoom Video - A feature (which never really caught on) on some portables, allowing their PC Card slot(s) to be used with ZV-compatible video capture or output products.

ZX chipset. Low-cost motherboards for use with Intel's Socket 370-compatible Celeron family of processors. ZX-based motherboards, like those based on the BX chipset, support both 66 and 100 MHz bus speeds.

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3DNow – an enhanced set of instructions found in the AMD K6-2 processor and its successors and some products by chipmakers Cyrix (National Semiconductor) and Centaur Technology (IDT). Supported by some games to improve 3D graphics performance. Intel's Pentium III processor includes a roughly comparable set of 3D enhancements called SSE.

802.16a –  An emerging standard for broadband wireless networking, 802.16a networks have a range of up to about 30 miles with data transfer speeds of up to 70mbps. Read more...