Complementary metal-oxide semiconductor

The term complementary refers to the fact that these chips use negatively
and positively charged transistors (which complement each other) to store
information. Most RAM chips rely on CMOS technology to store information,
but when discussing CMOS, you will probably be referring to the hardware
configuration settings that are saved between reboots of your computer.

(which is a storage area for configuration settings.)

Central Processing Unit

The processor performs a limited set of
calculations based on requests from the operating system and controls
access to system memory. Processor speed is measured in several different
ways, including clock cycles, megahertz (MHz), and Millions of Instructions
Per Second (MIPS) also

gigahertz (GHz).

which efficiently executes instructions for the OS.

Basic Input-Output System

is responsible for controlling or managing low-level but extremely
important processes like the POST (Power-On Self-Test), the boot process,
and the interaction of components on the motherboard.

which are low-level internal communication routines.

Firmware is programming code (software)
that is contained in or stored on the IC (Integrated Circuit) chips (hardware)
on your computer

which is a cross-breed between hardware and software.

(Industry Standard Architecture), which runs at 8 MHz

(Monitor)

(Peripheral Component Interconnect), which runs at 33 MHz
and 66 MHz

(Monitor)

(Peripheral Component Interconnect Express), which is a highspeed
serial bus, so its speed is measured differently than the others
which are parallel buses. PCIe has between 1 and 16 channels (1x – 16x)

(Monitor)

(Peripheral Component Interconnect Extended), which runs at
133 MHz

(Monitor)

(Accelerated Graphics Port), which runs at 66 MHz (but can be
increased to 8x the base speed or 528 MHz)

(Monitor)

Video Graphics Array

The VGA standard is output in 16 colors at
640x480.