Silicon Week: Your PC wouldn’t exist without these 6 historical components

By Kevin Lee

Critical components

Deca-core processors and video cards with 12GB of video memory are arguably some of the hottest components of our generation. But, what do you know about the chips that made today’s veritable supercomputers actually possible? Anything? Well then, bring up a chair and listen up, whipper snappers.

Without these chips, you wouldn’t have Doom, Spotify, Facebook, Instagram or even the ability open up a simple document. Not only did these processors make computing possible, they also shaped history from the rise of 3D gaming to establishing a standard codebase for PCs everywhere.

This article is part of TechRadar’s Silicon Week. The world inside of our machines is changing more rapidly than ever, so we’re looking to explore CPUs, GPUs and all other forms of the most precious metal in computing.

Introducing the x86 standard

By 1979, the microprocessor was seven years old and Intel had just announced the 8086 as the world’s first 16-bit central processing unit (CPU). Big wigs including NASA and IBM adopted the chip, helping Intel gain dominance in the computing world. However, the real lasting legacy of this processor comes from how it established the x86 information set …read more

Source:: techradar.com – Computing Components