About PCI and PCIe x16 slot

[palugulamadhu]

Hi friends,

I am not a computer savvy and all I wanted to know what is PCI, PCle x16, PCle x1 slot. As, my mother board had came up with these facilities and I don't know what the use of this slots and how can they helpful for me. So need a detailed explanation over these structures.

Has my mother board has 1 x PCle x16 slot
1 x PCle x1 slot
2 x PCI slots

 

[Jad Chaar]

The PCIe x16 slot is for GPUs, it is the highest bandwidth of them all. I can explain more later, I am in a rush now.

 

[slh28]

As JC explains the PCI-E x16 is usually for dedicated graphics cards, the others can be for sound cards, wireless cards, TV tuners, etc.

 

[Jad Chaar]

Here is a great, but very lengthy explanation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conventional_PCI

 

[mailpup]

Although the PCI-E x 16 slot is usually used for graphics cards, you can also fit PCI-E x 1 or PCI-E x 4 cards too. Since some motherboards have more than one PCI-E x 16 sized slot (though they may run at x 8 or less), you can make use of them for other expansion cards if you aren't running multiple graphics cards.

 

[SNGX1275]

A simple "PCI" slot is pretty much worthless today. They are just included for 'legacy' purposes. Pretty much, if you don't know you need a regular PCI slot, then you don't need one. Almost everything has a PCIe alternative now, you'd know if you required a regular PCI.