Accelerator

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What Does Accelerator Mean?

An accelerator is a hardware device or a
software program with a main function of enhancing the overall performance of
the computer. There are various types of accelerators available to help with enhancing the performance of different aspects of a computer’s function.

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Techopedia Explains Accelerator

Accelerators help in boosting the overall performance of a computer. There are various accelerators available which work by improving the overall performance of the system. Some of these include:

  • Hardware accelerator: This is used to enhance the speed and performance of the computer as it works by performing functions faster than the central processing unit (CPU).
  • Graphics accelerator: This works by enhancing the graphics rendering capability.
  • Cryptographic accelerator: This helps in faster encryption and decryption.
  • Web accelerator: This is a proxy server that improves the speed of internet.
  • PHP accelerator: This speeds up the PHP applications.
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Margaret Rouse
Technology expert
Margaret Rouse
Technology expert

Margaret is an award-winning writer and educator known for her ability to explain complex technical topics to a non-technical business audience. Over the past twenty years, her IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles in the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret’s idea of ​​a fun day is to help IT and business professionals to learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.