[SOLVED] What does PCI slot do these days?

[Lil’bertz]

Ive seen some motherboards have PCI slots along with the common 16x and 1x PCIe slots. but i wonder why is it include in the motherboard cus i never see any use of it
please enlighten me

 

[rgd1101]

for people who still have pci adapter

 

[Lil’bertz]

for people who still have pci adapter

i don’t get it 🙁( what pci adapter?

 

[rgd1101]

like sound card etc.

 

[drea.drechsler]

i don’t get it 🙁( what pci adapter?

or LAN adapter.... PCI is perfectly adequate for GigaBit ethernet.

Also data capture cards or IEEE interface cards. Those can be quite costly to replace, if you've a need for one in your work a replacement computer system with PCI slots will save you a bundle.

 

[Lil’bertz]

like sound card etc.

or LAN adapter.... PCI is perfectly adequate for GigaBit ethernet.

Also data capture cards or IEEE interface cards. Those can be quite costly to replace, if you've a need for one in your work a replacement computer system with PCI slots will save you a bundle.

but what is its purpose on gaming motherboards? cus i saw one motherboard (i think its asus or msi i dont remember) that has one.

 

[DSzymborski]

but what is its purpose on gaming motherboards? cus i saw one motherboard (i think its asus or msi i dont remember) that has one.

For the reasons above. There's nothing magical about the name "gaming" slapped onto something.

 

[drea.drechsler]

but what is its purpose on gaming motherboards? cus i saw one motherboard (i think its asus or msi i dont remember) that has one.

Curiously, PCI isn't for gaming so that's actually the reason why it still appears on boards. You could even find ISA and EISA slots well into the PCI and PCIe slot transition. Why? again, because people and organizations have costly to replace legacy add-in cards that needed a home. That's doubtless a reason why VLB (Vesa Local Bus) and AGP died so quickly - they were never very useful for anything besides gaming graphics cards.

Like DSzymborski said, Gaming is just a name applied to a motherboard, along with the flashy heatsink designs, solder mask and LED bling, to add appeal. It's only purpose was to rejuvenate the market amidst declining PC sales as gamers gravitated to consoles. For that reason most 'gaming' boards are actually 'budget' boards and of particular interest to organizations with tight budgets. Where these things are going, if they wanted to spend big they'd redesign their solution around a new platform entirely (Arduino, for instance). But that means a process change and new software that all has to be certified and qualified which is capital C 'Costly'.

Finally, since most gamers never use anything more than a single X16 slot losing one x1 slot location to a PCI is no big loss and opens up an entire market segment for your budget-priced 'Gaming' motherboard.

 

[CountMike]

"Gaming" = price booster. There's no reason a decent non-gaming computer can't play games.