Tristo is sad.

geckosquid · (This post was last modified: 11-04-2011, 07:42 by geckosquid.)

A PCI or Peripheral Component Interconnect slot is a slot used to connect additional extension cards to a PC. Sound cards, TV tuners or modems are some examples of devices that use PCI slots. PCI slots are designed according to the specifications of the PCI Special Interest Group, a group created in 1992 and supported by industry-leading computer manufacturers, aimed to promote PCI as an industry-wide standard.

History
In 1991, Intel came up with the first PCI standard, the PCI 1.0. However, it was only adopted in 1993 under the name of PCI 2.0 by the PCI Special interest Group, or PCI-SIG. The PCI 2.1 was released in 1995, followed by the 2.3 revision in 2002. The 2.3 revision is the last of the conventional PCI family. PCI-X and PCI Express are the successors, with the first version of PCI-X launched in 1999 and the first PCI Express launched in 2002 by the PCI-SIG group.

Types
There are three types of PCI standards: Conventional PCI, PCI-X and PCI Express. Conventional PCI and PCI-X share the same architecture but have different features and specifications. PCI-X is backward compatible with Conventional PCI. PCI Express slots are the fastest among the family of PCI slots, ideal for the high bandwidth requirements of graphic cards.

Features
Speed of PCI slot ranges from 133 megabytes/second of the PCI 2.0 up to 128 gigabytes/second for the PCI Express. Conventional PCI also has Plug and Play capabilities. PCI slots also use Error Correction Codes, or ECC, a technology that's also used in RAM memory modules to improve data integrity. PCI Express ports also allow for multiple graphic cards to be installed, considerably boosting the 3D performance.

Advantages
The PCI slots have the advantage of allowing you to upgrade or expand your computer's functionality quickly and easily, without the need of expensive hardware replacements. Addition of sound cards or video cards is possible by simply plugging them into a PCI slot instead of upgrading the whole mainboard. Also, in most cases, there are multiple PCI slots on a mainboard, giving you the possibility of adding multiple expansion cards working simultaneously.

Uses
PCI slots allow you to add expansion cards for different purposes. For example, even though your PC mainboard may come with an integrated audio chip, you might want to install a new sound card for better performance, which will be possible with the PCI expansion slot. The PCI slots can be compared to the USB slots, as they have pretty much the same role, with the difference that USB ports are external connectors, while PCI slots are internal connectors. PCI Express slots are used for connecting high-performance graphic cards to a computer, and represent a successor to the AGP slots.

Is that a better explanation, yotta?