The hardware of the personal computer represents the total of the computer components. The computer hardware represents the physical parts of the computer, the ones that you can touch. On the other hand the software of the computer represents the programs which are installed on the PC, and these ones can not be touched of course. There are various components which the computer hardware contains and in what follows I am going to present you these components.



I will start with the motherboard, as this is the component on which all the other components are located with very few exceptions. The motherboard is a large rectangular board which has various integrated circuits on it and through these circuits the other components are connected to it. One of the most important components which connect to the motherboard is the central processing unit, or the CPU; you might also know it by the name of processor.

The processor is responsible for performing most of the calculations which are required in order for the computer to be able to function properly. This is why the central processing unit is also known as the “brain” of the computer. The processor will be able to connect with all the other components of the computers with the aid of the chip set.

The memory of the computer is extremely important as well. Just like the processor, the Random Access Memory, or RAM for short, connects on the motherboard. The RAM stores all the running processes an the operating system, which means that it can be compared with a hard drive, and I am going to talk about this later, but which loses all the data at a reset of the computer. There are many types of RAMs and I should tell you that the more memory a PC has the better it is.



The hard drive is the component on which the data is stored including all the programs and files such as movies, audio ones, and so on. The more bytes the hard disk has the more memory it can store. There are also external memory devices such as USB flash drives and optical discs but these do not belong in the hardware category but in the accessories one.  The graphics card is important as well because it produces the output for the computer monitor.

The more advanced graphic cards are usually used for gaming and when using programs which are very demanding. The computer also contains the power supply, an underrated component but a very effective and important one. The power supply supplies power to all the other components located inside the computer and as you can tell if it doesn’t work well the computer will not start.

The hard drive of the computer is an important component because depending on the size of the hard drive you can store the amount of data. The bigger the hard drive is the more programs and files and such you will be able to install on the computer. The storage space of the hard drives has changed a lot in the last period of time mainly because the programs and the software have evolved as well. Take the games for example, 10 years or so a game which occupied 256MB was considered a very big game whereas the games from our days occupy more than 10GB, some even occupy 18GB when they are installed. Because of this aspect today’s hard drives can store even up to 2TB of data which represents a great deal of data.



There are also different types of hard drive, with different types of interfaces. A more recent type of hard drive is the Solid State Drive which is much more durable than the regular hard drive and which is way faster than the hard disk drive. The hard disk has many different parts which in case of physical shock can get damaged and a direct consequence of that could be the loss of data. This can be troublesome especially if the data you have on the computer is important. The Solid State Drives on the other hand are made out of a single unit and they are much more durable.



Besides the hard drive there are other computer storage devices which have the same purpose of storing data, only that they are external. The external storage devices are not able to store as much data as the hard drive with the exception of the external hard drive, which is basically an internal hard drive which is kept in a rack and which connects to the PC via the USB port. The more common external storage devices are the optical drives and discs such as the DVDs, CDs, Blu-Ray, and the ones which are no longer used such as the floppy disks and the ZIP disks.



These optical discs and drives usually store smaller amounts of data, the amount getting bigger and bigger with each new apparition. The CDs can store 700MB, the DVDs 4.5GB and the Blu-Ray can store 25GB. The main problem with the optical discs is the fact that they can not be written more than once, but even so they are extremely popular, as people use them for writing music, or movies, and even games. The USB flash drives represent another category of computer storage devices and their main characteristics is the fact that they are very small, they can store large amounts of data, and that they can be used more than once.

The technology of the personal computers is getting more and more advanced and that can be obvious thorough the components of the computer. The processors are getting faster and faster, the hard drives have bigger and bigger data storage capacities, and so on. The video cards have evolved as well, as the games are getting more and more demanding, requiring way more powerful components than before. Lately in the world of computer video cards, some improvements have been made, and these improvements are the DirectX 11 video cards. In what follows I am going to present you these graphics cards which have the DirectX 11 support.



Some of these DirectX 11 video cards are the ones released by ATI and which belong to the 57XX series. All the video cards which care included in these series have DirectX 11 support and Pixel Shader model 5 supports, besides other features of course. All the graphics cards from these series have a memory of 1GB GDDR3 which means that these video cards will not have any problems with very high resolutions and with running high demanding programs or complex computer games. Of course, in order to play computer games you will need help from the other components as well, and in most of the cases the components in such computers are high-end as well.



The PowerColor 5750 is one of the video cards which belong to the 57XX series. The first thing that I should tell you about it is the fact that it does not have a PCI-e 6-pin power adapter which means that if you own a computer from an older generation you will not be able to use it. The video card has two DVI supports, one being DisplayPort and the other HDMI. This model is very silent and if you would like to make yourself a quiet system then you should choose this video card.

The Sapphire 5850 is another great choice you can make as this video card is one of the best there is. It is capable of running even the most demanding games in very high resolutions and the best part about it is the fact that it doesn’t tend to overheat, it consumes very little power, and it has DirectX 11 support of course. This video card is somewhat noisier than the other PowerColor 5750, but besides that it is much better in all of the domains.



As you would expect, it costs much more than the 5750. There are other video cards with DirectX 11 support, but in my opinion these were the ones worth mentioning. If you can afford it and if you are a gamer, then I would definitely advise you to buy a DX 11 video card.