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A classic motherboard with on-board integrated graphics processors, a discrete graphics card can be installed at a PCI slot. GPU switching is a mechanism used on computers with multiple graphic controllers. This mechanism allows the user to either maximize the graphic performance or prolong battery life by switching between the graphic cards.
Dedicated graphics cards are not bound to the motherboard, and therefore most are removable, replaceable, or upgradable. They are installed in an expansion slot and connected to the motherboard. On the other hand, an integrated graphics card cannot be changed without buying a new motherboard with a better chip, as they are bound to the motherboard.
Before 2003, any interaction between a CPU and main memory or an expansion device such as a graphics card(s) — whether AGP, PCI or integrated into the motherboard — was directly controlled by the northbridge IC on behalf of the processor. This made processor performance highly dependent on the system chipset, especially the northbridge's ...
In particular, PCI Express expansion cards take much of their power from the 12 V rail (up to 5.5 A), while the older AGP graphics cards took only up to 1 A on 12 V and up to 6 A on 3.3 V. The CPU is also driven by a 12 V rail, while it was done by a 5 V rail on older PCs (before the Pentium 4).
Components of a GPU. A graphics processing unit (GPU) is a specialized electronic circuit initially designed for digital image processing and to accelerate computer graphics, being present either as a discrete video card or embedded on motherboards, mobile phones, personal computers, workstations, and game consoles.
By the late 1990s, many personal computer motherboards included consumer-grade embedded audio, video, storage, and networking functions without the need for any expansion cards at all; higher-end systems for 3D gaming and computer graphics typically retained only the graphics card as a separate component. Business PCs, workstations, and servers ...
An adapter card or expansion card is a circuit board which is plugged into the expansion bus in a computer to add function or resources, in much the same way as a host bus adapter (see above). [ 3 ] [ 1 ] Common adapter cards include video cards , network cards , sound cards , and other I/O cards.
An expansion card in computing is a printed circuit board that can be inserted into an expansion slot of a computer motherboard or backplane to add functionality to a computer system via the expansion bus. Expansion cards can be used to obtain or expand on features not offered by the motherboard.