In reference of: page for beginners and following the good advice from Please add to this as you see fit.
Thank you

My contributions
A couple of links:

1.COMPUTER TERMINOLOGY

2.Common Computer Terms & Definitions

3.Computer Dictionary - PC Terminology

4.COMPUTER TERMINOLOGYthis one comes from agricultural and extension education?

5.High Tech Dictionary This is the best one so far, use the yellow tabs on the right.

The three non processor/ Ram technologies.

PCI- A dated slot that is still used for most add ons e.g. Sound cards and modem cards. Once used for graphics as well, it eventually couldn't deliver enough power and was replaced by AGP. There are still some cards that use PCI, but most are nothing special, and intended for non gaming work.

AGP- The succesor to PCI for graphics cards. A single mud-brown slot that could deliver a lot more power than PCI and allowed for much higher specification. It has been the staple of graphics slots for several years an it now only available in 4x/8x format, although there used to be 1x and 2x as well. About a year ago, this suffered the same demise as PCI, it had reached the end of its' potential for new cards, and most new cards needed a exta power connector anyway. This is gradually disappearing, to make way for PCI-Express.

PCI-Express- THis new graphics slot technologie debuted about a year ago, offering at least twice the speed of AGP 8x (16x) and running of a much improved PCI bus on the motherboard. There are also PCi-Express 1x slots, which are very small, and are designed to succed PCI for add-on card instalation. However there are few to no card that yet utilise these slots, as PCI can still fullfil most non graphics demands, but means the more powerful ones to come have somewhere to go.

PCI-E- PCI- Express

SLI- A technology by Nvidia which utilises two PCI-E 16x slot (motherboards have to be designed for it)and allows for two graphics card to run in tandem and increase perfomance. Each card is given a portion of screen to process, and the size depends on the complexity and requirements of the images in that portion. Running off its' own motherboard bus, SLI can be notoriously difficult to set up, but offers sizable performance benefits. SLI remains an enthusiast option due to its' trickiness to set up, and the expense of buying two identical graphics cards.

Crossfire- ATIs' newly released answer to SLI. Although information is sketchy at present, it apparently can't offer performance benefits comparable to SLI, and is generally of lower performance to SLI. SLI suffered similar performance problems upon its' launch, and Crossfire is expected to improve massieley over the next year.

Nvidia- One of the top two graphics card manufacturers. Is currently in the performance lead with SLI and the 7800GTX, but the graphics card leader changes almost every few months. Favours the OPenGL technology and uses complex shader instructions.

ATI - One of the the top two graphics card manufacturers. Is soon expected to release its' challenge to Nvidias current performance king the 7800gtX, which will for the base for a new line of cards. ATI currently offers a much better choice of mid-range options than Nvidia, and it's newly debuted Crossfire technologie is expected to improve massively over the next year. ATi favours the Direct 3D graphics technologie, and uses processor power to bulldoze through shader requirements, instead of complex shader management e.g.Nvidias FX5950 and 7800 series.

ahh, i tell 'em to use google. if google stopped working now, i don't think that the internet would ever be the same. i don't even use my address bar anymore, except to copy and paste.

HAHA me too!
Any more it's right click, copy link location,
paste to address bar, enter. I don't even use auto complete.


Tho maybe something along the way of "search syntax" would be cool.
Even I have room to know more about streamlining my searches.
In your own way you have contributed to this and helped out.
Thkz Zep

can't believe you missed the most basic and useful resource for tech terms. www.webopedia.com