Guide: Understanding what makes a PC part 2

Previously, we covered the;

1. Motherboard
2. Central-Processing Unit (CPU or Processor)
3. Random Access Memory (RAM

In today's post, we will cover the;

1. Power Supply Unit (PSU)
2. Hard Disk Drive or Solid State Driver [Storage] (HDD or SSD)
3. Graphic Processing Unit (GPU)

Power Supply Unit

The PSU is one of the most important part of the PC. It helps drag electricity out from your wall socket into the PSU to power up your PC and its' components. It is serious business to get a certified, well reviewed and accepted brand Power Supply Unit. The current performance specification just shows you how efficient the PSU converts the electricity from the wall at different loads (heavier work load on strain on CPU or GPU or program intensive will ask for more power)

You may wonder now why is it that we should spend money on an item that just only provides power for your PC system when I could find a cheaper variant without a brand elsewhere? . The answer is, depending your system build, you may have an under-performing system with the lack of electricity to power up your PC. Similarly, your PSU will run HOT when its' capacity is exceeded beyond 15% of its' total wattage. For example, your PC could have a 400 watt Power Supply Unit, however, with a strong processor and a graphics card, you may need 500w-650w depending on the game or work load that is being done. Additionally, Your PC will start to lag, stutter, slow and re-boot if there is not enough power flowing through the Power supply unit.

It is strongly suggested you get a certified, well reviewed and accepted PSU is because the PSU can fail extraordinarily if there is a defect or cheap components inside. It could overload and disperse raw electricity into your system components and damage the sensitive technology you painstakingly bought and built to fit together. Or, it could also catch fire and burn the surrounding peripherals like the screen, speakers, mouse and your physical work documents. All which leads to a premature and immediate death of your Computer, work and game data and what investment you had in your PC, which Voids all your PC parts warranty due to your own negligence in failing to provide a safe, stable and effective electric current through a PSU.

However, the worst case scenario is that your PSU defect, cheap, or straight out under-powered is capable to burn your house down. Be Warned

HDD and SSD Storage Device

To my understanding, the HDD is an older tech, it needs to spin (like a CD needs to spin and to play and process information) to read and write data. It is bigger at 3.5 inch, it comes in many capacity, and it is much more affordable to replace and find access to HDD. HDD processing speed is measured by its Rotation per minute (RPM), which are between 5,400 rpm and 7200 rpm, where the higher rpm allows you to access data quicker. So if you were to buy an external hard disk drive, or internal one, check the RPM to ensure you are getting what you're promised and what you want.

The SSD on the other hand, is newer and more recent technology unlike the HDD which spins like a CD. The SSD can read and write data as quick as you are clicking a music play button on your now-a-day portable music device. Looking online, the speed starts at 654 MB per second, goes up to 712MB per second when accessing or using the SSD as a Boot device (your OS is installed on 1 of your many storage device to act as the operating system) and there is also a 6GB per second SATA interface (connectors) It is only 2.5 inches, lighter and slimmer compared to the HDD. With great power comes also a great price tag.

It is possible that the SSD could hold data longer and safer compared to the HDD. Further personal research and understanding of the topic and hardwares' can be searched online.

To show a comparison between the two technologies of HDD and SSD through Price alone can suggest that (15/02/2018)
A 4TB Seagate 6Gb/s 3.5 inch Internal Hard Drive on Amazon will cost you within the range of 90$ ~ 120$ USD price range, which is quite affordable.
A 12TB Seagate6Gb/s 3.5 inch will cost around 430$ USD and that is a lot of storage space.

However a 4TB Samsung 860 EVO 2.5inch SATA lll Internal SSD will cost you at least 1,345.97$ USD, which is 10 times more expensive, but it is large, super fast, light and small.

Graphic Processing Unit
This is the most fun and interesting part, according to techopedia (15 Feb 2018), a GPU is a single (one)-chip processor used to boost the performance of video and graphics.

It can render 2-D or 3-D graphics, it can connect to other digital output of flat panel display screens (or curved TV nowadays), it will always have software updates to support high loads on intense graphic software or games to for optimal performance. It is able to render polygon, support YUV color space (Y - luminance/Brightness, UV are color components for human perception), hardware overlay and MPEG decoding which helps process information and takes off heavy load from the CPU.

So in summary the GPU performs and controls these functions to render visual effects and 3D graphics so that these tasks will not be handled by the CPU in the details of such video rendering service.
It is like hiring a dedicated specialist to do something you could've done, but it would have been better if you focused on your own task which was managing your your work flow (overall system), while your specialist does what it does best.

The two major players in the GPU market are Nvidia (Team Green) and AMD (Team Red), both provide GPU with AMD also providing processors and currently as of February 2018, processors with Integrated GPU processors together, making it a battle of dollar to price value of the highest level as Intel (Processor company) has CPUs' too, but with complacency and unwilling to change its' ways

Intel CPUs and iGPU can't be compared to the AMD 99$ or 169$ variant and solution to the GPU market of price inflation due to mining. This obviously becomes a GPU + CPU + value spotlight as it is able to play entry level games on medium setting with at least 60fps and above depending if the game is CPU intensive or GPU intensive.

Do search up Ryzen 5 2400G or Ryzen 3 2200G
Check it out

Disclaimer: I am not a professional, my writing is purely out of interest and may be inaccurate and/or outdated, I cannot be responsible for any negligence or negative consequences that befall on the reader with their PC or house if a fire did occur. There are many sites that can be searched on Google that provides better and clearer explanation on many of the PC parts. Do not take my word as is, as I may have been wrong. This writing is only to the best of my knowledge.

Understanding that depending on how wide-and-graphical intensive your game is, all games can be optimized with software updates and tweaked to get into playable gaming frames rates and stability. So its' all about a matter of time and technological advancement that prices will be competitive again with Intel hopefully or Nvidia. Similarly, older games are playable as the iGPU chip is pretty good according to the graph seen above.