**Section 9: Optical drives **
{Written by: Luke992006}
~Different Types of Optical Drives~
CD-Rom: Only reads CD’s
CD-RW: Reads and Writes only CD’s
DVD-Rom: Only Reads DVD’s and CD’s
DVD-RW: Reads and Writes DVD’s and CD’s
~Connection/Compatibility~
All of the newer DVD-RW drives are Sata connection instead of IDE. When buying any optical drive be sure to check the connection type and make sure you have one available on your motherboard. Also if you plan to overclock a lot and want as good of air flow in your case as possible then you should buy a Sata optical drive because the cable is much smaller and easier to tuck out of sight for it will not disrupt air flow, thus maximizing the cooling.
**Section 10: Common Hardware and computer terminology**
{Written by: Luke992006}
IDE: Integrated Drive Electronics
CPU: Central Processing Unit
Sata: Serial ATA
GPU: Graphical Processing Unit
ATA: Advanced Technology Attachment
LED: Light-emitting diode
HDD: Hard Disk Drive
SSD: Solid State Drive
RPM: Rounds Per Minute
VGA: Visual Graphics array
RAM: Random Access Memory
DVI: Digital Video Interface
DDR: Double data rate
FPS:#1 Frames Per Second
#2 First Person Shooter
SLI: Scalable Link Interface
LCD: Liquid Crystal Display
Mobo: Motherboard
CRT: Cathode Ray Tube
PSU: Power Supply Unit
PCI: Peripheral Component Interconnect
**Section 11: Miscellaneous**
{Written by: Luke992006} ~Monitor response time Explained~
The Response time of a monitor is how long it takes to display what the computer is doing. This is quite important when playing fast paced FPS (first person shooters). Monitors that have a high response time will experience ghosting. An example of ghost would be you turn in a FPS and you see a blur behind a garbage can that is in front of you where is used to be on the monitor and where it is going. The lower the response time is the better, the lowest available is 2ms. I myself don’t settle for anything other then 2ms. The ms means Millisecond, So the ms response time on a monitor is how long the monitor will take to change what it is displaying.
~DVI VS. VGA And What They Are~
DVI stands for Digital Video interface, and Vga stands for Visual Graphic’s Array. DVI is digital and Vga is analog. DVI has a slight advantage over Vga by being able to produce a more vivid and clearer picture. DVI is quickly become the norm for monitors.
~Getting Rid of Unwanted Heat~
The easiest way to cool down the components in your case is to buy some fans and do some wire management. Buying a better heatsink for your CPU will cool it better (a heatsink must also match the socket type of your motherboard and cpu) You can also buy after market Gpu heatsinks. Usually it is not necessary but you can buy hdd coolers (they are just fans in cases that you place underneath your hdd’s) these methods are only really necessary when one is overclocking…stock cooling is ok for stock clocks. If you’re going to be overclocking a lot then water cooling is a good choice too cool components more then air cooling. Water cooling has its risks though; if there are any leaks the water can damage components. Water cooling is pretty much how it sounds. Water is circulated threw tubes in your computer to components (most commonly the CPU and Gpu(s)) and then it passes threw a radiator to cool down the water again.
For extreme overclockers there is another type of cooling available called Phase Change Cooling. It is quite expensive…some systems can cost up to $2000 just to cool the CPU. I am not going to go into detail about this type of cooling because it is not very common.
If there is any mistakes, or there is something that you think should be included or added let me know.