Lecture 9 Four Factors Affecting the Computer’s Performance

System Specification
1. Processor’s Speed
a. Architecture - is the most important factor to determine its
System Requirement Specification (SRS)
performance, and refers to its basic design and complexity.
- is normally produced in response to a user (ex. Celeron, Pentium, Core 2, Core i3, Core i5, and Core i7)
requirements specification or other expression of requirements,
and is then used as the basis for system design and applications. b. Cache – is a form of very fast memory integrated into the
processor’s chip and used to store up instructions (work for the
processor) so that it has to slow down as little possible between
The Six Important Information to Record in System Specification includes: tasks.

1. Operating System (i.e. Windows XP, SP 2 or Mac OS X 10.3.8) c. Front Side Bus – is a measure of how fast a microprocessor
communicates with the computer’s main circuit board into which
- The most important program that runs on a computer. it is physically connected.

2. Processor Speed (i.e. Pentium 4, 3.2 GHz or Power PC G5, 2.0 GHz) 2. Memory a.k.a. RAM
- The speed of a computer’s processor chip (technically known as 3. Graphics System
its “clock speed”) 4. Internal Hard Drive

3. Memory, a.k.a. RAM (i.e. 512 MB)

- Measured in megabytes (MB) and gigabytes (GB).

4. Graphics Card (i.e. ATI Radeon 9800 w/ 256 MB video memory)

- A computer’s graphics system determines how well it can work
with visual output.
- It can either be integrated into a computer’s motherboard, or
plugged into the motherboard as a separate video card.

5. Hard Disk Space (i.e. 80 GB available)

6. I/O Ports (i.e. USB, Firewire, Serial, Parallel, SCSI, VGA, DVI ports)