The processor or CPU is the heart of any computer and is what actually does the work within the computer. This is what truly divides the PC world as Apple and Windows computers use totally incompatible chips. Windows CPU come from a number of different manufacturers, the main ones being Intel and AMD, and in a number of different formats, for example Celeron, Pentium I, II, III etc. The chip designations are a source of confusion because some chips are designed with specific purposes and all can be run at different clock speeds. The clock speed is a reflection (though not an absolute guarantee) of the speed that the processor executes instructions. It is usually stated in Mega Hertz (MHz), therefore a 650MHz is slower than a 850MHz processor. Today we are seeing the advent of processors running in excess of 1GHz.

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After Wednesday’s season-ending win over Utah, guard Derek Fisher was talking about his offseason plans. He owes his new wife (as of the All-Star break) a honeymoon and then he comes back to the Bay Area for a ... second honeymoon -- with the Warriors.

Golden State closed out the season 18-10 since trading for guard Baron Davis and, after the team received a standing ovation from fans Wednesday, Fisher and Davis wanted to grab the microphone. Fisher wanted to tell the crowd -- which already has a 1,000 more season-ticket holders than two months ago -- that the best is yet to come. The team is young and still coming together, a process that will start again in a couple of months in a gym in downtown Oakland.

“It’s been really exciting,” Fisher said. “In a way, we hate to see the season end because we are playing so well. But we know we are just scratching the surface. We’ve gained a lot of confidence in each other and everyone on the team is very comfortable with each other.

“The good thing is everybody got through the season healthy and in good shape, so everyone will be ready for training this summer.”

*2004-05 Video Highlights*

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The Warriors (34-48 ) scored more than 100 points in their last 14 games and won 11 of 12 games at one point down the stretch, beating playoff teams Sacramento, Phoenix, Seattle and Houston. Those are teams Golden State will look to jump over and into the playoffs next season -- the Warriors’ 18-10 mark with Davis translates into 52 wins over a full season.

Golden State vice president Chris Mullin isn’t ready to throw any parades until the Warriors make that next jump, but even the close-to-the-vest Mullin admits the pieces are in place to get fans in a real frenzy next season.

“We’ve created a roster and some momentum,” said Mullin, who along with general manager Rod Higgins, acquired six players in four midseason trades. “All we’ve really done is get something to build on. Getting Baron was a big boost. ... And all of our young guys have improved this season. That’s important.” Davis is 26 years old and Jason Richardson, Mike Dunleavy, Troy Murphy, Mickael Pietrus, Zarko Cabarkapa and Andris Biedrins are all 24 or younger. Fisher and center Adonal Foyle are only 30. The club’s youthful enthusiasm permeated through the rafters of The Arena in Oakland, as the Warriors established a single-season attendance record by averaging 16,350 fans, capped by Wednesday's showing of 16,804 fans. It’s the third consecutive season Golden State set a single-season franchise record and the fifth consecutive season the Warriors have seen an increase in attendance. Only the Pistons can match that. “To come back next year and have our players (play well) over an entire season and get our fans really excited, that’s what I am thinking about,” Mullin said. “That’s what I am excited about. Our fans have been like a really good friend. They have always been there for us.” Coach Mike Montgomery can’t wait -- after a short vacation “somewhere warm,” of course -- to get back to his desk and piece together all the random notes he scribbled over his first season in the NBA. “I know what Mike Dunleavy can do and Jason can do and how to get the ball to Troy,” Montgomery said. “Now you can put much more emphasis into your basketball team. We will be much better prepared next season." Also, consider that Davis, acquired Feb. 24 from New Orleans, doesn’t know the entire offense and still had some nagging injuries. And he still averaged 19.5 points and 8.3 assists as a Warrior. "I can be quicker and stronger,” Davis said. “If I'm quicker and stronger, I'll play better." Davis said the Warriors always had the talent to be better, they just needed a spark. That spark came wearing a headband, sporting a beard and wearing #5. “It was a mentality we were lacking,” he said. “I believe in each and every individual on this team. They all want to get better, and I believe I can make them better.” Richardson continued to improve and, along with Davis, gives the Warriors one of the best backcourts in the NBA. He is not known as just a dunker any more, scoring 40 or more points twice this season and finishing 15th in the league with 21.7 points per game. “We’ve been working hard to be a good team, and we’re getting closer and closer,” he said. “It feels good, but we have a lot more to do.” In a short amount of time, Davis has connected not only with Richardson, but with Warriors fans. He wants to win as badly as they do. “I've never played in front of so many people, and so many people who are behind you and cheering loud,” Davis said. “It's a playoff atmosphere in the regular season. I can't wait until we make our push for the playoffs next season. ... It's going to be fun next year." And next year starts sooner than you think. Tickets are going fast , as will the few months before the Warriors players put on their practice jerseys again. They know the expectations are there now, and they want to continue to build on the chemistry that has already fueled one of the best fast breaks in the NBA the last two months. "It's not going to be easy," Dunleavy said. "The West is tough, but we have some talent and if everybody improves over the summer and we come back and play well at the beginning of the season, we've got a chance to do something good." Being the best NBA team in California is just a start. Next year, the Warriors are hoping for much more, the fans just know it. “The fans are really excited about what they see,” Fisher said. “Not only did the players’ confidence go up, but so did the fans.”

The question you need to ask is how much this will affect your work. If you can type at speeds above 1GHz then you are superhuman, whereas some applications such as photo-retouching require alot of processing power and the speed of the processor will have an impact on how much work you can do.

Typically in adverts you will see the processor as the first line of any spec, for example:

The type and speed of processor you require is difficult and you should look at the package as a whole, for example it is not worth buying a very fast processor at the expense of having a smaller amount of RAM.

RAM stands for Random Access Memory and is what the computer uses to work with information, for example if you open a letter from a storage device (e.g. a disk) it will be copied to the machines RAM so that it can be worked on. RAM is installed into a PC using chips that contain a certain amount of RAM, which is why the amount of RAM you can install is governed by the size of chips that are compatible with your PC, i.e. if your PC accepts 64MB chips you can have configurations in multiples of 64MB, up to the maximum allowable number of chips.

As a guide 32MB is not enough, 64MB is just about acceptable for general office tasks, 128MB is recommended for most applications, 256MB is about as much as can usefully be used for many applications.

Hard Disks

Any PC needs a hard disk to store your documents and the applications that you use to create them. The bigger the disk, the more you can store. Most PCs now come with hard disks in Giga bytes (100MB) increments, for example a basic PC will have a 6GB hard disk. As a guide a letter in word format may take 20Kb to store whereas as an A4 picture could take up to 25MB of storage. The bigger the disk the more you can store. The cost of these storage devices is incremental, so only pay for what you need - and remember that if you have a huge disk and it breaks down, you will lose everything - so think about removable storage as well.

Removable storage refers to any media that can store information but can be physically removed from the computer. In the early days this was basically the floppy disk, but now a number of other options are available and some come as standard on new PCs. The most popular devices are made by iomega and are the Zip drives that come in 100MB and 250MB formats (this refers to the size of the removable disk). The advantage of these devices are that they can be used to regularly back-up your hard disk or transfer files to others (although they will also need a Zip drive). The other increasingly popular method of removable storage is the CD writer. These come from a number of manufacturers and allow you to create your own CDs that can be sent to others and used for backups. The downside of CD writers is that they are quite slow and are less flexible as you can typically only "burn" or write the CD once. There are also a number of different formats and this can lead to incompatibility with certain CD readers. The main advantage is that the media is very cheap. Typically a blank CD, purchased in bulk works out at below £1 for 650MB of storage, whereas a Zip 100MB cartridge may cost up to £7.