Design Goals
The exact form of a computer system depends on the constraints and goals it is optimized for. Computer architectures usually trade off standards, cost, memory capacity, latency (latency is the amount of time that it takes for information from one node to travel to the source) and throughput. Sometimes other considerations, such as features, size, weight, reliability, expandability and power consumption are factors.
The most common scheme carefully chooses the bottleneck that most reduces the computer's speed. Ideally, the cost is allocated proportionally to assure that the data rate is nearly the same for all parts of the computer, with the most costly part being the slowest. This is how skillful commercial integrators optimize personal computers.
Read more about this topic: Computer Architecture
Famous quotes containing the words design and/or goals:
“Delay always breeds danger; and to protract a great design is often to ruin it.”
—Miguel De Cervantes (1547–1616)
“Whoever sincerely believes that elevated and distant goals are as little use to man as a cow, that “all of our problems” come from such goals, is left to eat, drink, sleep, or, when he gets sick of that, to run up to a chest and smash his forehead on its corner.”
—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)