A few questions about motherboards

[suitcase]

What controls the PCI buss and what is the data transfer speed?
What's the difference with PCI Express?
What does the northbridge chip control, same q for southbridge?
What is Level 1 cache, level 2 cache?
What exactly is "hyper-threading"?
What's the difference between DDR ram and the stuff that came before? I"m not referring to rambus.
What is the usb port on the back of some monitors?
Is there a usb cable with the same usb connector on both ends?
Could you connect two PCs together with usb cables?

[RJ]

What controls the PCI buss and what is the data transfer speed?

The PCI bus is controlled by the southbridge. The transfer speed is 133 MB/s for all PCI slots together.

What's the difference with PCI Express?

PCI Express is the successor of PCI and AGP. It is a serial interface and much faster than PCI. And from what I've read, the transfer speed is for each single PCI-e slot, not shared as with PCI.

What does the northbridge chip control, same q for southbridge?

The northbridge controls CPU, graphics slot, and RAM. Basically the three things that evolve the fastest.
The southbridge controls everything else (USB, PCI, PCI-e, IDE, chip for legacy connections such as PS/2, COM, LPT and floppy).

What is Level 1 cache, level 2 cache?

These are caches on the CPU itself. Caches are very fast, and are used for storage of code or data that will be used shortly. RAM is very slow, therefore not good for fast storage.
After the registers, there comes the L1 cache for storage. And before data goes to RAM, there comes the L2 cache.

What exactly is "hyper-threading"?

A CPU with hyper threading (HT) has many components twice, so it's more like a dual CPU instead of a single CPU. And that increases the performance, especially for multitasking. But not all components exist twice, therefore a real 2 CPU system is still faster. Nevertheless HT is better than a normal non-HT-CPU.

What's the difference between DDR ram and the stuff that came before?

DDR RAM can transfer data at both rising and falling strobes of a clock cycle. Before DDR it was only possible to transfer data at one of these strobes (I think the rising). So DDR can transfer data twice as fast without increasing the clock frequency.

What is the usb port on the back of some monitors?

There should be more than just a USB port. It should be a USB hub.

Is there a usb cable with the same usb connector on both ends?

Yep. But don't use it to connect two PCs together, you will damage the USB ports.

Could you connect two PCs together with usb cables?

Yes. For this you need a USB laplink cable. They cost around $40, and allow you to connect PCs together using the USB port.

RJ

[suitcase]

Thanks for the answers. I "kinda" understand that stuff. One more though. I'm considering upgrading and was wondering what intel socket would be the best. 478, LGA 775? Does one have an advantage over the other? Or should one just wait awhile to see whats next. I'm not really to keen on the AMD 64, because I understand they support dual ram. And,, does that really matter?

[Cricket]

If you're going to upgrade and want be prepared for future upgrades, then Socket T (or LGA775) is the only way to go. Socket 478 will be put out to pasture eventually.

Cricket