Grade 12 IT

Hardware
and
Software
EXPANSION CARD
An expansion card is a printed circuit
board that you can insert into an
expansion slot on a computer's
motherboard to add new features or
enhancements to a computer. These
cards can provide additional
functionalities such as improved
graphics, sound, network connectivity,
or other capabilities.
 ONBOARD
CONTROLLER
An onboard controller is an integrated circuit on a
computer's motherboard that manages specific hardware
components without the need for separate expansion
cards. Examples include integrated graphics controllers
or sound controllers. On board often refers to devices
like a sound card, network card integrated into the
motherboard
IMPROVING PROCESSOR SPEED
MULTIPROCESSING REGISTER SIZE

HYPERTHREADING BUS SIZE

OVERCLOCKING PROCESSOR CACHE

 HYPERTHREA
DING
Hyper-threading is a technology used in
CPUs to improve their efficiency. It
allows a single physical processor core
to act like two logical cores by
duplicating registers on the chip.

It allows for faster context switching

MULTIPROCES
SING
Multiprocessing refers to the use of two
or more CPUs within a single computer
system to execute processes
simultaneously. This is often used to
improve computational speed and
efficiency.
 Processor
Cache
Processor cache is a small, high-speed
storage area located inside or very close
to the CPU. It temporarily stores
frequently accessed data and
instructions to speed up processing
times.

It has L1,L2,L3
 REGISTER
SIZE
Register size indicates how much
information the processor can operate at
one time and how it moves data around
internally.

The registers can be 32 bit or 64 bits

which determines how many processing
stages required for data Registers
 BUS SIZE
Determines the more signals that can be
sent at the same time along the data
bus.The number of bits the data bus can
dictates the size of the register on the
CPU
Overclocking
The practise of making computer
components run at speeds fast than the
designed by manipulating component
frequencies

1. Per components - Cpu is made to

operate faster than the system
clock
2. The whole system - the system
clock is increased.
 CO-
PROCESSORS
A co-processor is an assistant processor
designed to handle specific tasks alongside the
main CPU, such as graphical calculations or
mathematical computations. This helps to
offload certain workloads from the CPU,
potentially improving overall system
performance
GRAPHICS
PROCESSOR
a GPU (Graphics Processing Unit), is
a specialized electronic circuit
designed to accelerate the
processing of images and video. It
manages tasks related to rendering
graphics, making it essential for
applications like 3D rendering and
video editing.
 GPU
( Has 4 main components )

A Motherboard connection for data and power

A processor to render each pixel

Memory to store pixel details

A monitor connection to view images

 GPU

The GPU is the most

important component of
the graphics card with
many cores to process in
parallel,Video RAM stores
data about each pixel, its
colour and location on the
screen, Faster VRAM can
improve the performance
of graphics card provided
the GPU is sufficiently
powerful, At the time of
writing, Each graphics card
needs a cooling
mechanism such as heat
Integrated graphics

Integrated graphics is
more adequate as opposed
to a separate graphics Advantage:
card,designed for
games,who require more
realistic images, The term Cost- more affordable
“integrated” means that Less heat and less power use- result in
instead of a separate GPU, longer battery life ​
the GPU is embedded into
the CPU and instead of
separate VRAM, the GPU
shares system RAM
 Maths Co-
Processor
A maths co-processor can help
ALU of the CPU process complex
calculations using numeric
data,Numeric data is either an
integer where the decimal point is
fixed or a real number where the
Advantage :
decimal point can be anywhere Calculations are
produced faster
The maths co-processor is improving performance
designed to perform floating point
calculations extremely quickly, It
co-exists with the Cpu on the
Disadvantage :
motherboard Big space required on
Motherboard
Greater power
consumption of the
second co-processor
Increasing the speed and size of
RAM
RAM is volatile memory
that stores all loaded
programs and data, There
are a couple of measurable
factors that determine
overall RAMS
speed,Frequency affects
maximum bandwidth,
witch is how much data
can travel to and from RAM
at a time

Latency affects how

quickly RAM can respond
to a request, The optimum
 Virtual Memory
Virtual memory is housed on
slower secondary storage
and each time pages are
swopped in and out of RAM,
the processing time will be
reduced, Increasing the size
of the RAM is a better option
to reduce the need for virtual
memory; however, this is not
always possible, depending
on whether the motherboard
has spare RAM slots and the
motherboard is compatible
with the newer generation of
 Buses
Internal Bus External Bus

External buses connect

The internal buses are also external devices to a
known as local buses computer, such as storage
because they are on the drives, monitors, and
motherboard and an keyboards. They consist of
electrical circuits that
integrated part of the
facilitate data transmission
processing capabilities of between the computer and
the computer, As such the the device. External buses
size of the bus will influence are generally slower than
the speed of processing: internal buses. They can be
the larger the bus the either serial or parallel, and
their size and data transfer
greater the ability to carry
rate significantly affect the
more data in the same
computer's processing
amount of time speed when interacting
 USB Ports
● USB Type A - Familiar rectangular port. It provides electricity, and controls
the data transfers to attached devices.
- Examples of devices that use this port are: Desktop Computers, Laptops,
TVs etc.

● USB Type B - Square with slight rounding or large square protrusion on the
top, depending on the version. Often used for external hard drives and
printers.
- Mini USB Type B: Used for cameras and older devices.
- Micro USB Type B: Used for smartphones, GPS units and tablets.

● USB 3.0 Micro B - Before USB Type C. Designed to carry data and power in
USB SuperSpeed applications
- Examples are external hard drives and some mobile devices.

● USB Type C - Reversible, it can be plugged in either way. Allows charging

with bidirectional power.
- Examples are new Laptops, newer models of smartphones etc.
● USB On-The-Go(OTG) - Allows mobile devices to act as USB hosts.
 HDMI and
⏣ DisplayPort:
DisplayPort
- DisplayPort is defined as a digital audio and video interface used to connect a
display device such as a computer monitor or projector to a data source such as
a CPU.
- DisplayPort comes in two varieties: standard and the smaller Mini DisplayPort.
- Supports the connection of multiple monitors by using daisy chaining(connecting
multiple monitors in a series using one video cable from one monitor to another
monitor, rather than connecting each monitor directly to the computer)

⏣ HDMI:

- High-definition multimedia interface, widely known as HDMI, is a data

transmission standard that connects a data source, such as a CPU or a set-top
box, to an output device, such as a television, projector,
desktop monitor, laptop, or speaker.
- It is popular for both commercial applications and personal use.
- HDMI became the standard for most High Definition devices and is now widely
 Thunderbolt Ports
⏣ Thunderbolt 3 and Thunderbolt 4 ports look exactly the same as USB-C
ports, and indeed their connectors are physically identical. For the most
part, they can do everything a USB-C port can, except faster.

⏣ Today's Thunderbolt 4 devices let you transfer data at up to 40Gbps—twice

as fast as the 20Gbps maximum throughput of today's fastest USB-C ports,
and four times as fast as the original Thunderbolt interface.

⏣ Besides sending and receiving data to and from an external hard drive,
Thunderbolt can unlock additional capabilities for connecting displays and
expansion docks.

⏣ A Thunderbolt port means that a single cable is all you need to push power
and transfer a large amount of information (such as video data for two or
more 60Hz, 4K resolution external monitors) to and from a computer.
 Secondary
⏣ SSD vs HDD:
Storage
- Hard Disk Drives(HDD) and Solid State Drives(SSD) both are data storage
devices. Whereas HDDs are more traditional storage mechanisms, SSDs are
newer and more sophisticated.
 M.2 Format
⏣ A specification for internally mounted computer expansion cards and
associated connectors. M.2 replaces the Mini SATA (mSATA) standard and the
Mini PCIe (mPCIe) standard (which is how it got the short name of M dot 2
from being Mini SATA 2). Employing a more flexible physical specification,
M.2 allows different module widths and lengths, which, paired with the
availability of more advanced interfacing features, makes M.2 more suitable
than mSATA in general for solid-state storage applications, particularly in
smaller devices such as ultrabooks and tablets.
⏣ Computer bus interfaces provided through the M.2 connector are PCI Express
x4 (up to four lanes), Serial ATA 3.0, and USB 3.0 (a single logical port for
each of the latter two). It is up to the manufacturer of the M.2 host or module
to select which interfaces are to be supported, depending on the desired
level of host support and the module type. Different M.2 connector keying
notches denote various purposes and capabilities of both the M.2 hosts and
Mobile
Technol
ogy
Greg Chatterton
What are mobile
devices?

Mobile devices are

any battery powered,
portable devices with
computing
functionality and
make use of 3G, 4G,
5G or wireless
connections to
interact with other
ICTs and the internet
Wearable
Technology Types

Wearable technology ● Smartwatches

○ Smartwatches are worn like regular watches and
or smart wear are
connect to a user’s smartphone via bluetooth.
worn near to or on the
● Smart Clothing
skin; their purpose is ○ Smart clothes are any technologically enhanced
to detect , analyse, clothing items that add functionality beyond that
and transmit of traditional use
information about the ● Head-Mounted Displays
user such as vital ○ A HMD is worn on the head or is embedded in a
signs and helmet with a small display for one or both eyes.
environmental data ■ Virtual Reality
which can provide ● Fully enclosed,synthetic experience
with no sense of the real world
immediate biological
■ Augmented Reality
feedback to the user ● Real world remains central to the
experience, enhanced by virtual
Mobile Technology
Constraints
● Screen Size
○ Screen size can increase but still
needs to be portable
● Single Window
○ Devices can only display a single
window at a time to the user
● Touchscreen
○ Since the screen is smaller icon ● Battery Life
and buttons need to be larger ○ Due to advancements in other
● Computing Power mobile technologies , devices have
○ A mobile CPU chip is designed for higher energy demands which
devices.it is limited by power todays batteries are struggling to
consumption and heat dissipation keep up with
● Power Consumption
○ Mobile devices are energy efficient
because they are designed to run
on batteries for a long time