Which hardware components or features of the components that may affect the computer's runnining speed?

Answer 1

That's a very broad set of questions, but I'll give a small explanation.

The Processor is considered the computers brain. All tasks have to run through it. When looking at a processor you have to look at the speed (in Ghz, the higher the better), the cache (in MB, the higher the better), and how many cores it has (most nowadays have at least 2, the more the better.) You can also find the core size in mm^2. The LOWER the core size, the better in general. Smaller cores tend to be cooler and use less electricity, allowing them to be clocked at higher speeds.

For most people the biggest speed increase comes from more RAM. RAM basically holds information until the processor can get to it. RAM can be in either Megabytes (MB's) or Gigabytes (GB). 1 Gigabyte is equal to 1024 Megabytes. The most common RAM sizes are 256 MB (Fairly rare nowadays), 512 MB, 1 GB, and 2 GB. Again, the higher the better, meaning you'd want as many GB's as possible. 1 GB is fairly standard in newer computers, and a lot of them will have 2 or even 4 depending on the price range. They can go higher than that, but most don't.

You can get into more details about RAM, but for beginners the most important thing to know is that more RAM is better.

The Hard Drive is what stores all the information on the computer. Most hard drives are Mechanical hard drives, which are the slowest kind available right now but are a ton cheaper than faster drives and can hold far more information. When checking the Hard Drive in terms of looking for speed, the higher the RPM's, the faster it will be. The Cache is also important, the higher the better (will be anywhere from `8 MB-64 MB probably)

If you're into gaming, the graphics card has the biggest effect on how fast games can run. Graphics cards are a lot trickier though. The core size on graphics cards matters more than on processors, because there are a lot of them out there and of a couple different sizes. Again, the smaller the core size (sometimes called the "die" size), the better.

For graphics cards there are also several speeds that need to be checked. The memory on it will have it's own speed, as well as the core clock, and the shader clock. For all of these, the higher the better.

And lastly, how much memory the graphics card has needs to be checked. In general anything over 512 MB should be fine, and most now have 1 GB. Anything over 1 GB is usually excessive and not needed, so don't feel like you have to spend a lot more money on a 2 GB version of the same card.

That's the basics, but keep in mind better looking specs don't necessarily always mean better performance, computer parts can be tricky to judge if you don't know what you're doing. Shop around, and try to read reviews and comments on any part you're thinking about getting. A simple Google search of the component will bring you tons of both.

Answer 2

The processor and the RAM.