Heat Sink; Thermal Grease; Video Card; Tv Tuners - Dell Alienware Series Manual

Heat sink

Heat sinks are used to dissipate heat generated by the processor, some high-end graphics cards, and on-board chipsets. Heat sinks
generally have a fan mounted above or beside them to increase airflow. A heat sink is made up of fins or blades instead of a single block of
metal. This helps increase the surface area for increased heat dissipation. A layer of thermal grease is applied between the processor or
graphics card and the heat sink for easy exchange of heat.

Thermal grease

Thermal grease, also called thermal gel or thermal compound, is used to create a heat-inductive layer between a processor and heat sink.
Applying thermal grease between the processor and heat sink increases the heat transfer from the processor to the heat sink, as the
thermal grease has better conductivity than air.

Video card

Video cards process graphics data and send video output to a display device such as a monitor or projector. Video cards can be of two
types:
• Integrated–Often referred to as on-board video card, it is integrated on the system board. In some computers, the video card is
integrated on the processor. Integrated video cards generally share the system memory (RAM) and the may also utilize the processor to
perform video processing.
An Accelerated Processing Unit (APU) is integrated on the same die as the processor and provides higher data transfer rates while
reducing the power consumption.
• Discrete– Discrete video cards are installed separately on the systemboard. Discrete video cards have dedicated memory on the
cardsand generally provide higher performance than integrated videocards. These cards are best suited for graphic intensive
applications,high‑definition video games, and so on.
NOTE: When a discrete video card is installed on a computer that also has an integrated video card, the integrated video card
is disabled by default. Use the BIOS setup program to select which card to use.
Switchable graphics allow computers equipped with both a low‑power integrated graphics chip, and a high‑power discrete graphics card to
switch between either cards, depending on the load and requirements.

TV tuners

You can use TV tuners to watch television on your computer. TV tuners are available for desktop and laptop computers as internal or
external devices.
NOTE: TV tuners are not supported in all computers.

Internal

• PCI-E
• PCI
About your computer 25