A Look At The Components

Nation's Business, Sept, 1998

The components most commonly upgraded are processors memory and hard drives.

Other items often upgraded are graphics accelerators, data-backup devices, and CD-ROMs.

Information about PC components can be found in many computer magazines and mail-order catalogs and on the Internet. Following are a few companies that manufacture computer components for upgrades.

Processors

Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (1-800-538-8450, www.amd.com). AMD's Pentium-class K6 processor features the same multimedia extension technology as Intel's Pentium processors for fast graphics handling. It is available at speeds up to 300 megahertz (MHz).

Cyrix Corp. (1-800-162-9749,www.cyrix.com), Cyrix has come out with a competitor to the Pentium II, which it calls M II, available at speeds up to 300MHz.

Intel Corp. (1-800-628-8686,www.intel.com). Pentium II is Intel's most advanced processor, with speeds up to 400Mhz.

Memory

Kinston Technology Co. (1-800-337-8410,www.kingston.com). Kinston makes memory for most major brands and configurations of PCs. Memory is available in increments of up to 64 megabytes.

Simple Technology Inc. (1-800-474-6753,www.simpletech.com). Simple is another longtime maker of reliable memory of all types and sizes for mainstream PCs.

Hard Drivers

Maxtor Corp. (1-800-262-9867,www.maxtor,com). Maxtor's Diamond-Max hard drives have capacities of up to 11.5 gigabytes (GB).

Seagate Technology Inc. (405-936-1210,www.sagate.com). Seagate sells its Medalist, Cheetah, and Barracuda hard drives with capacities of up to 18GB.

PowerQuest Corp. (-800-379-2566,www.powerquest.com). Replacing a hard drive is much easier using PowerQuest's DriveCopy and Drive Image software. DriveCopy ($29.95) copies the contents of one hard drive to another. Drive Image ($69.95) allows companies to copy the configuration and contents of one hard drive to multiple drives.

Graphics Accelerators

ATI Technologies Inc. (905-882-2600,www.atitech.com). The All-in Wonder Pro-graphics card offers several graphics features, including 3-D and 2-D graphics and video, a stereo television tuner, and video capture capabilities. Retail price $279.

Number Nine Visual Technology (1-800-438-6463,www.nine.com). Number Nine's Revolution 3D graphics card greatly increases the processing speed and clarity of computer graphics and video. It handles 3-D and 2-D graphics and video. Retail prices start at $129, depending on the amount of memory.

Backup Devices

Iomega Corp. (1-800-697-8833,www.iomega.com). Iomega offers a number of solutions for backing up data, including the internal Zip drive ($99)-which uses small cassettes that each can store up to 100MB of data-and the internal Jaz tape drive ($279.95), which has up to 2GB of capacity.

SyQuest Technology Inc. (1-800-245-7334,www.syquest.com). SyQuest's fast SparQ internal drive ($1999) for PCs stores 1GB of data. The SyJet tape drive ($249) for PCs and Macs provides fast data storage of 15GB of data.

CD-ROM/DVD

Panasonic Computer Peripheral Co. (www.panasonic.comlalive, 1-800-742-8086). CD-ROM drives have become indispensable for landing software and using multimedia and reference materials stored on CD-ROMs. Panasonic's LK-MC682BP internal 32-speed CD-ROM provide blazing playback and fast response times Retail price is $99.

Sony Electronics Inc. (1-800-352-7669,www.sony.com). Digital videodisc players allow users to play back full-motion video off high-capacity discs as well as conventional audio CDs and CD-ROMs. Sony's DDU220E/H DVD drive comes bundled with an MPEG decoder card that takes much of the burden of playing video off the PC's processor, allowing users to play videos while working on other tasks. Retail price is S349.

Creative Labs Inc. (1-800-998-1000,www,creativelabs.com). One type of DVD drive, known as DVD-RAM, enables users to record a whopping 5.2GB of data per double-sided disk. Like other varieties of DVD drives, Creative Labs' DVD-ROM drives also enable playback of audio CDs, and pre-recorded DVD videos. Price direct from Creative Labs: $499.99.