CompTIA® Server+ : Difference Between System Board Types, Features, Components

On board Components:

• NIC (Network Interface Card): It is an hardware adapter card. It contains a transceiver for sending and receiving data frames to and from a network. It also contains Data Link layer hardware needed to format sending bits and to decipher received frames.

• Video Card: It is an expansion card which generate a feed output image to display on monitors.

• Audio Card: It is also called as Sound Card. It is an expansion card handle input and output audio signals to and from a computer under control of computer programs.

• USB (Universal Serial Bus): designed to standardize the connection of computer peripherals (including keyboards, pointing devices, digital cameras, printers, portable media players, disk drives and network adapters) to personal computers, both to communicate and to supply electric power.

• HID(Human Interface device): It is a device which takes input from humans and delivers output to humans

• Serial Port: It is serial communication physical interface through which information transfers in or out one bit at a time.

• Parallel port: It is a parallel communication physical interface It is also known as printer port.

PCI : Important features of PCI 2 bus are given below:

• PCI-X 2.0 is a higher speed version of the PCI X ( more specifically PCI-X 66 and PCI-X 133) standard.

• PCI X 2.0 provides for two new speed grades: PCI-X 266 and PCI-X 533, offering up to 4.3 gigabytes per second of bandwidth

• PCI 2 is up to 32 times faster than traditional PCI bus speed

• Doubles and quadruples PCI-X bandwidth.

• Full hardware and software backward compatibility (i.e. compatible with PCI, and PCI X).

• Uses the same form factor, pin-outs, connector, bus widths, and protocols.

• PCI-X 2.0 offers enhanced system reliability. ECC support has been added, providing automatic single-bit error recovery and double-bit error detection.

• The original specification for PCI supports 3 PCI devices on a PCI Bus. There will usually be 3 expansion slots in a PCI bus. Note that you can increase the number of PCI devices that can be connected by increasing the number of PCI buses.

AGP (Accelerated Graphics Port) : It is used for attaching graphics cards for video displays to motherboard.

Riser Cards : Riser cards allow the addition of expansion cards, such as video and graphic cards, to a system that doesn't allow for perpendicular placement of the expansion cards. Riser cards plug into and rise above the system board, while providing additional expansion card slots. Riser cards enable the connection of additional cards in a parallel orientation to the system board, as opposed to perpendicular, which conserves space within the system case.

SCSI (Small Computers Systems Interface)

Some of widely used SCSI connectors are:

1. 1. Centronics type 50-pin connector (old type)

2. 2. 50 pin high density connector

3. 3. 68 pin high density connector