3.5g - Expansion Cards: Professor Messer

• Expansion cards allow extended computer functionality.

  • Relatively simple process - typically requires adding the expansion card, and installing a driver if necessary.

  • Open the motherboard, find expansion card slots, and then insert the expansion card into one of those slots.

Sound card

• Outputs: High-end audio is used for advanced headphone applications or home theaters.

• Multiple inputs: Used for music capture or podcasting.

Video card

• Referred to as a discrete graphics card - different from the integrated graphics card (the GPU).

• Used to provide higher performance than what the CPU/GPU offers.

• Typically used for gaming/high-performance applications.

• To use the video card, plug your monitor into one of the video card interfaces available (i.e., any ports on the video card).

Capture card

• Allows video as input/video capture into a system

• Typically used for live streaming/external cameras

• Uses high video bandwidth - requires PCI Express video cards

Network interface card

• Provide Ethernet/wireless connectivity to a device

• Can be used when the motherboard doesn’t include a NIC or the onboard NIC is not functional.