#peripheralcomponentinterconnect

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Bus Slots

All Motherboards Are Equipped With Input/output Bus Slots. These Are Typically Located At The Bottom Rear Of The Motherboard. These Bus Slots Are Alos Called Expansion Slots.

Because These Slots Are Used To Expand The Capability Of The Computer. For Example, The Motherboard Doesn't Already Have A Built-in Sound Card. Then You Can Add A Sound Card By Inserting One InTo One Of These Bus Slots Giving Your Computer The Ability To Produce Sound. Or Let's Say The Motherboard Doesn't Have Enough USB's Ports To Suit Your Needs. You Can Add A USB Expansion Card In One Of The Bus Slots To Add More USB Ports.   Bus Slots Come In Different Types. The First-Ever Bus Type Is

ISA - Industry Standard Architecture

ISA Slots Have 8 Bit Data Path, Running At 4.7 Mhz. ISA Slots Are Old And Slow. And Are Not Seen On Modern Motherboards. And Have Been Succeeded By The Faster PCI Slots.

  PCI - Peripheral Component Interconnect

A Modern Type Bus Slot Today Is PCI. PCI Is Been Around Since 1993. And Was The Standard Bus Slot For Modern Motherboards Until PCI-E (Express) Came Out. PCI Slots Are Much Faster Compare To ISA Slots. With A Data Path Of 32 Or 64 Bits With The Speeds Ranging From 133-533 Mb/s They Are Also Half The Physical Size In Length Of The ISA Slots. As Computers Got Faster A lot Of People Were Using Their Computers For Higher End Graphics Applications. Such As Gaming. And As Computers Became More Graphically Oriented The PCI Slot Is Lagging Behind And Delivering Computer Graphics Data. For This Purpose  

AGP- Accelerated Graphics Port 

The AGP Slot Was Developed. AGP Stands For Accelerated Graphics Port. And It Was Created To Assist In Accelerating 3D Computer Graphics. One Of The Main Reasons Why AGP Is Is Faster Than PCI Is Because AGP Has Its Own Dedicated Pathway To The Processor Unlike PCI. The AGP Port Is Only Used For A Video Card. And It Is Usually A Brown Color.  

PCI-Express

PCI Is The Lastest Version Of Bus Slots. It Is Faster Than PCI. With Speeds Upto 4 GB/s And Unlike Standard PCI Which Transfers Data In Parallel, PC-E Transfers Data In Serial. Transferring Data In Serial Is Much Faster Than Parallel. Because Serial Data Is Transferred In Packets. PCI Express Is Designed To Succeed All Other PCI Bus Slots And AGP. And It Is Not Backward Compatible With Standard PCI Because Its Architecture Is Very Different. There Are 4 Different Slot Sizes In PCI-Express. PCIe X 1 PCIe X 4 PCIe X 8 PCIe X 16   PCIe X 1 Has 1 Lane For Data.A Lane Has 4 Wires, 2 Are For Sending And 2 Are For Receiving. PCIe X 4 Has 4 Lanes For Data. PCIe X 8 Has 8 Lanes For Data. PCIe X 16 Has 16 Lanes For Data. This Slot Is The Fastest Slot Because Of 16 Lanes And PCIe X 16 Has Succeeded The AGP Slot For The Video Card.

  AMR- Audio/Modem Riser

Some Older Motherboards May Contain A Bus Slot Called AMR. The Purpose Of The AMR Was To Allow The Manufacturers To Create Motherboards That Didn't Have Analog Input/Output Functions. By Using AMR, This Analog Function Can Now Be Created By Inserting An Expansion Card. Such As A Modem Or A Sound Card Into The AMR Slot. This Slot Was Developed By Intel In 1998. And About Half The Size Of A Standard PCI Slot.

  CNR-Communication & Network Riser

CNR Was Another Slot Developed By Intel. It Was Designed To Be An Improvement Over The AMR. The Improvements Had Over AMR Was It Can Either Software Or Hardware Driven. Compare To AMR Which Was Only Software. And Other Improvement Was It Was Plug And Play Compatible While AMR Was Not. But Both AMR And CNR Are Becoming Absolute. Because Of The Increasing Number Of Integrated Components The Motherboards Now Come Equipped With.                 Read the full article