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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The writing, as they say, is on the wall. Or in the Suns’ case, on Amaré Stoudemire’s right shoulder blade which sports the phrase, “I shall rise.”

The All-Star center’s optimistic tattoo is a sentiment the entire Suns squad will have to take to heart as they look to reload for Game 2 of the Western Conference Finals Tuesday night.

Phoenix may have furthered its franchise record scoring streak with yet another 100-point playoff performance, but that had no luck in shutting down San Antonio’s relentless offensive attack, as Phoenix dropped Game 1 to the Spurs Sunday, 121-114. Between Tim Duncan shaking off the effects of a bad ankle to the tune of 28 points and 15 boards, and backup Brent Barry catching fire from the perimeter, a Spurs’ 43-point fourth quarter ultimately sunk the Suns.

“No excuses,” said Jimmy Jackson about his team’s performance. “Pick your poison. Double team Tim and he kicks it out, and they’ve got great three-point shooters. It was the little plays. A second shot, not getting back in transition. Those things are what beat us.”

“We didn't do the things to win the basketball game,” Suns Head Coach Mike D’Antoni added. “It always comes down to about five or six plays that I just didn't think we competed hard enough on. You are not going to beat a team like San Antonio unless you do. That's why they call you champion. When they put that on you that means heart and brains, and how hard you can do it for 48 minutes. We will regroup on Tuesday and we'll get it done. It's going to be hopefully a long series and you know, we have some growing up to do and we'll adjust. But it will come down to making big plays and stops and heart.”

Even though Stoudemire came up big with a game-high and career playoff-high 41 points, the most obvious omission from the Suns’ shooting arsenal Sunday was Shawn Marion’s offense. Averaging over 22 points in the postseason, the Matrix didn’t hit his first field goal in the game until the third quarter. The forward finished the afternoon with only three points in just six attempts from the field.

“This just happens sometimes,” Marion said. “This is basketball. Some nights you just can’t get (them), but at the same time, you have to go and reassert yourself sometimes. That’s part of the game. I want to help my team, but at the same time I have to get involved in the offense for us to beat these guys. I know that and they know that. We have to work out something and go do it.”

Individual statistics aside, J-Jax was quick to point out that 114 points is usually enough to win ballgames, but even that is no guarantee when defensive lapses let the other team constantly light up the scoreboard. “If you look at the score, we scored enough points,” Jackson said. “It was defense where we fell short. Let’s not get it confused. It was defensively where we lost the game, not offensively.” Improving their record to 6-0 when scoring over 100 points this postseason, the Spurs allowed the opposition to break the century mark for just the third time in the playoffs. “We want to play games in the 90s and the 80s, but when opportunities are there, we're going to take the shots,” Duncan said. “I thought we did a great job of mixing the tempos, playing controlled at times and when the opportunity was there to do it we pushed it back out. “(Today was) not a game that we usually play but if the shots are there, we have got guys that will take them and make them. Opportunities were there where we were moving the ball. We weren’t forcing things and that’s the kind of ball we want to play.” While it was a minor victory for the Suns to post over 100 points versus the league’s top-ranked defense, Spurs forward Robert Horry says he wasn’t surprised by the Pacific Division Champion’s ability to score almost at will. “That’s the Suns,” Horry explained. “That’s how they’ve been all year. We were just lucky to outscore them. We made shots. That was the thing. We were aggressive in our offense and made shots. That puts the pressure on them. “We had a great first half. We kept their scoring down, and then all of a sudden, they came out of the gate in the third quarter and they just started scoring. Luckily we started scoring also.” NBA MVP Steve Nash once again went on a tear, dropping 29 points and 13 assists. Even though there is still a long way to go in the Conference Finals, he says the Suns will need to rely on what got them the regular season’s league-best record. “Obviously we really want to win the next game,” Nash explained, “but our team is a young team that, you know, is learning some lessons and improving as we go. I think it's just very important for us to keep trying to improve. If we do that we're going to win more games than we're going to lose because we have got a lot of talent and resilience. I am looking for those two things to be key factors in Game 2.” As for Stoudemire, the 22-year-old spelled it out in terms of what the Suns need most to reverse their fortunes in Tuesday's Game 2 – “D.” “We’re normally a team that goes on a fourth quarter run, so we have to step it up defensively,” STAT said. “We have to play 100 percent in the fourth, especially defensively. We tried to stop guys so much, so hard to the point were we left open shooters to step up. We have to do a much better job of locking guys down in the fourth quarter. That’s when it all lays out. We want to go to the Finals, so every game is a Game 7. We need to bring our 'A' game.”

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.