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Random Access Memory (RAM)
Whereas data stored on your hard disk drive must be accessed in a certain sequence data stored in RAM can be retrieved randomly; meaning all data stored in RAM can be accessed at about the same speed. Because program applications rely very heavily on RAM it's a good idea to purchase a laptop loaded with the maximum RAM capacity your wallet will allow.
Most value laptops will be offered with 256MB to 512MB of RAM, mainstream laptops are likely to be equipped with 512MB to 1GB of RAM and no premium laptop worth its salt will be found with less than 1GB of RAM. It's worth noting that not all RAM operates at the same speed; measured in MHz. A laptop will perform better, for example, if it's equipped with 512MB of 667MHz RAM than it will if it's equipped with 512MB of 266MHz RAM.
Increasing RAM is one of the easiest and most effective ways of breathing new life into an aging or over-worked laptop. Even if you think that answering email and surfing the web are the only activities for which you'll use your laptop you should make sure that at least one, and preferably both, of your laptop's memory slots are accessible. Why; you may ask? Because, after awhile, almost everybody finds more uses for their laptop than they ever thought possible. With accessible memory slots you can very easily increase RAM capacity.
Graphics Processing Unit (GPU)
Since ATI introduced the revolutionary Mobility Radeon 9600, providing high performance laptop gaming capabilities, the issue of laptop graphics has become exceedingly confused and confusing. Back in the old days, nobody considered using a laptop for gaming so we all just accepted the limitations and loaded games on our desktop's. Now, though, all (or at least most) things are possible.
In general, laptop graphics processors fall into two basic categories:
- Integrated: An integrated graphics processor (IGP) is built into your laptop's motherboard and uses system RAM. Cool operation, low battery drain and low cost are among the advantages enjoyed by integrated graphics cards. Sharing system memory, however, severely impacts performance so, unless your laptop comes equipped with a high end IGP like ATI's Radeon® Xpress 1250 Series (Intel), Xpress 1100 Series (AMD) or Radeon® Xpress 200M, you shouldn't expect to run the latest 3D games.
- Dedicated: These GPUs are most often equipped with their own, dedicated, RAM and are installed separate from the motherboard. Because they don't share RAM, mid to high-end dedicated GPUs will outperform an IGP.
As with all things "computer" you'll find that GPUs, dedicated or otherwise, fall into three general categories: adequate, decent and smokin' good. GPU RAM size varies quite a bit; some vendors will choose to offer versions with more memory, some offer versions with less. Essentially a dedicated GPU has its own RAM to work with and as always, the more the better.
Bus width refers to how wide the bandwidth between the RAM and the GPU is. A bigger bus width allows more data from the RAM to be transferred at once. Bus width comes in 64-bit, 128-bit, and 256-bit; generally, 128-bit is the gamer's minimum. RAM capacity ranges from 32MB to 512MB; 64MB is the minimum for decent graphics performance but no real gamer would be happy with less than 256MB.
Hard Disk Drive
Size and speed are the two primary considerations when you're spec'ing laptop hard drives. (If you're looking for a laptop with more than one installed hard drive, and a few laptops are offered with two, then you might also be interested in how they can be configured but, if that's the case then you already know more than you're going to learn from this guide.) The first laptop I owned was equipped with a 4200 RPM 6GB hard disk drive and, when I bought it, that was plenty. My current laptop is equipped with a 5400 RPM 80GB hard disk drive and I'm wishing I'd have further upgraded it to the 100 GB drive option. How did I go from being happy with 6GB of storage to being concerned that 80GB might not be enough? One word: MUSIC! Yes, I discovered music downloads and now my hard drive is filled with the sound of music (no, not the movie).
As it happens, though, music, picture and especially video files can take up a lot of hard drive storage space so, if you think you're going to store a lot of these file types on your hard drive you'll want to opt for the largest drive you can afford. As for speed, the faster the drive spins, the faster it can access data. This isn't especially important for surfin' and such so, if that's your main purpose, a 4200 RPM drive will probably do nicely. For most other tasks, though, you'll probably be happier with a 5400 RPM drive and if you're a power user, then by all means, see if you can get a 7200 RPM drive installed.
Optical Drive
If you think you might want to use your laptop as a miniature entertainment center you should give careful consideration to your choice of optical drive. The laptop I currently own is equipped with a DVD/CD-RW drive which is just fine for watching movies on DVD, ripping, burning or listening to CDs, and installing software; but I wish I'd ponied up the extra bucks for a DVD±RW which would allow me to do all that plus burn DVDs in either + or - format. It's not that I do a lot of video editing; quite the contrary. It's just that DVDs hold a lot more information and it'd be easier to back-up my files, for example, if I could burn one DVD rather than multiple CDs.
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