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CompTIA A+ Certification All-in-One Exam Guide

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Figure 17-34 Typical video card

Motherboard Slot

Techs will encounter four ways that display adapters connect to a

motherboard. The oldest connector type, PCI, is used today only for an

additional card to support extra monitors on older systems. Slightly newer,

but still quite old in computer terms, is AGP. Every current discrete video

card plugs into the PCIe slot on a motherboard. Finally, many motherboards

have the display adapter built-in. I’ll discuss integrated graphics after talking

about graphics processors and memory types, at which point the topic will

make more sense. For now, let’s look at PCI, AGP, and PCIe.

PCI

Using more color depth slows down video functions. Data moving from the

video card to the display has to go through the video card’s memory chips

and the expansion bus, and this can happen only so quickly. The peripheral

component interconnect (PCI) slots used in almost all systems for many years

are limited to 32-bit transfers at roughly 33 MHz, yielding a maximum

bandwidth of 132 MBps. This sounds like a lot until you start using higher

resolutions, high color depths, and higher refresh rates (which mattered in the

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