Hardware Components

Hard Dive

 

A hard drive is a high capacity storage device that can be read or written to.  The hard drive is where files, programs and most importantly the operating system.

The more storage available on a hard drive, the more files can be stored on it. Obviously this has advantages in terms of being able to store many more image files.

How Hard Drives Work

Graphics Cards

 

 A graphics card is a device that consists of a graphics processing unit designed to process and display images. Graphics cards help take the processing strain off the main processor and RAM as they contain their own memory.

Computers with better graphics cards will be able to use programs that require high amounts of cpu for rendering to be run with less strain on the processor.

Processor(s)

 

The processor is a chip located on the motherboard. The core of the computer, it controls everything. It works by interpreting instructions in programs into movements of bits inside the memory.

Computers with higher GHz processors are able to use software that is processor intensive with much less latency or crashes than those with slow processors. With a high speed processor, image manipulation software such as Photoshop should run smoothly.

RAM

 

RAM stores the data the programs are working on. RAM is a volatile memory, meaning the data stored on it is lost upon shutting down. The more RAM a computer has the more applications that can be run simultaneously without causing spikes in latency or crashing the system.