Numerous Hardware Questions - Hardware & Software

After quite some time I decided that I know too little about various aspects regarding hardware. [list] [*] After reading around, being told etc I'm unsure about what purpose the RAM serves. [*] What purpose serves the L2 cache on a CPU? [*] Northbridge and southbridge! Wait, what? I am clueless actually. [*] What makes the difference between 32 and 64-bit? Or what is the difference, if you like. [*] "DDR"? What does it stand for and what's the deal about DDR2, DDR3 etc? [*] How does data transfer function? I'm really curious about this one. For instance internet. How is data transferred? Is it electricity? What is it? Binary code? I have no idea. [/list] That's about it, I cannot accumulate any more questions this yet. Thanks in advance for answers.

[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L2_cache[/url] [url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southbridge_(computing[/url]) [url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northbridge_(computing[/url]) [url]http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-US/help/41531554-d5ef-4f2c-8fb9-149bdc5c8a701033.mspx[/url] (this is for the 64 and 32 bit question) [url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDR_SDRAM[/url] (this may be the thing about DDR) and i couldnt find one for the lastone, so yeah. yourwelcome.

[QUOTE=Within;16477839]After quite some time I decided that I know too little about various aspects regarding hardware. [list] [*] After reading around, being told etc I'm unsure about what purpose the RAM serves. [*] What purpose serves the L2 cache on a CPU? [*] Northbridge and southbridge! Wait, what? I am clueless actually. [*] What makes the difference between 32 and 64-bit? Or what is the difference, if you like. [*] "DDR"? What does it stand for and what's the deal about DDR2, DDR3 etc? [*] How does data transfer function? I'm really curious about this one. For instance internet. How is data transferred? Is it electricity? What is it? Binary code? I have no idea. [/list].[/QUOTE] 1) RAM is like a temporary storage for information, mainly data that is being used at the time. Fairly simple, when you run something, any data it uses/ needs will be moved into the RAm so it can be read quicker than a hard drive will allow. 2) I don't know this myself... 3) All I know is they are vital...I've forgotten their purpose as I rarely pay attention. The wikipedia page posted might help. 4) The Bit refers to the amount of memory it can allocate. 32-Bit can only use 3.5GB or so usually, mainly Windows limiting it, but 64-Bit can use much much more, usually limited to 128GB of RAM though. 5) DDR -Double Data Rate. It's the common type of RAM now. DDR2, 3 and so on are basically updated versions which have faster speeds, and that kind of crap. 6) Data is Binary, data is also electricity, or light, or magnetism used in certain ways. It's hard to explain with limited knowledge. Explained in idiot terms and simplified, so it's probably all wrong :fuckyou:

[QUOTE=hexpunK;16478294]4) The Bit refers to the amount of memory it can allocate. 32-Bit can only use 3.5GB or so usually, mainly Windows limiting it, but 64-Bit can use much much more, usually limited to 128GB of RAM though. [/QUOTE] [quote]32-Bit can only use 3.5GB or so usually, mainly Windows limiting it, but 64-Bit can use much much more[/quote] [quote]32-Bit can only use 3.5GB or so usually, mainly Windows limiting it[/quote] [quote]32-Bit can only use 3.5GB or so usually,[/quote] [quote]3.5GB[/quote] [IMG]http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk156/om_nom_nom/1222304834435.png[/IMG]

The last one would be binary but if you want to get down into the hardware side its just off or on. Like a component can ether be off or on and that tells the next component something and so on and so forth.

[QUOTE=Within;16477839][list] [*] How does data transfer function? I'm really curious about this one. For instance internet. How is data transferred? Is it electricity? What is it? Binary code? I have no idea. [/list][/QUOTE] Data is transferred through electric signals, basically pulses of current. As the above post says, this is translated into binary that the computer can understand. [QUOTE=hexpunK;16478294]4) The Bit refers to the amount of memory it can allocate. 32-Bit can only use 3.5GB or so usually[/QUOTE] 32-bit is limited to 4GB of total memory, including RAM, VRAM, and a few other small things like the CPU cache.

[QUOTE=Roast Beast;16479080]32-bit is limited to 4GB of total memory, including RAM, VRAM, and a few other small things like the CPU cache.[/QUOTE] Ahh I got used to reading 3.5 due to the fact I had shared VRAM.