Expansion Cards - How a Computer Works (2015)

How a Computer Works (2015)

10. Expansion Cards

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Motherboard

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Expansion cards plug directly into the motherboard. This enables them to connect to local or system buses. Expansion cards are used for communicating with devices/ peripherals as data can be moved to them at a much higher speed than using USB ports.


PCI

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Most expansion cards centre around the PCI bus standard. The 32-Bit PCI local-bus card is closely integrated with plug and play and is the most common card used in PCs.

The card handles 32 bits of data at one time.

AGP

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An adaption of the PCI slot design is used to connect a 32-bit Accelerated Graphics Port (AGP) card. This is used to interface a monitor to the motherboard.

Graphics Card

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The AGP is designed to accept only graphics cards as with the PCI card an edge connector that forms part of the PCB slides into a special connector on the motherboard. This connector differs from the one on the local PCI bus.