Datasheet

The requirements for the graphics card depend on the resolution at which you want to
run. The required amount of memory is as follows:
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64 MB is required for a single monitor at a resolution of 1,310,720 pixels or less,
which is equivalent to a 1280×1024 resolution.
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128 MB is required for a single monitor at a resolution of 2,304,000 pixels or less,
which is equivalent to a 1920×1200 resolution.
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256 MB is required for a single monitor at a resolution larger than 2,304,000 pixels.
The fi rst step is to determine which applications will be used. Typically, most users will
work with an email program, a word processor, a spreadsheet, presentation software, and
maybe a drawing or graphics program. Additionally, an antivirus application will probably
be used. Under these demands, a 1-GHz Celeron processor and 1 GB of RAM will make
for a very slow-running machine. So for this usage, you can assume that the minimum
baseline confi guration would be higher than a 1-GHz processor with at least 2 GB of RAM.
Based on your choice of baseline confi guration, you should then fi t a test computer with
the applications that will be used on it and test the confi guration in a lab environment
simulating normal use. This will give you an idea of whether the RAM and processor
calculations you have made for your environment are going to provide a suitable response.
Today’s disk drives have become capable of much larger capacity while dropping
drastically in price. So for disk space, the rule of thumb is to buy whatever is the current
standard. At the time this book was written, 500-GB drives were commonplace, which
is suffi cient for most users. If users plan to store substantial graphics or video fi les, you
may need to consider buying larger-than-standard drives.
Also consider what the business requirements will be over the next 12 to 18 months. If
you will be implementing applications that are memory or processor intensive, you may
want to spec out the computers with hardware suffi cient to support upcoming needs to
avoid costly upgrades in the near future.
Measurement Used for Disk Space and Memory
Hard disks are commonly rated by capacity. The following measurements are used for
disk space and memory capacity:
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1 MB (megabyte) = 1,024 KB (kilobytes)
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1 GB (gigabyte) = 1,024 MB
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1 TB (terabyte) = 1,024 GB

1 PB (petabyte) = 1,024 TB

1 EB (exabyte) = 1,024 PB
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