PCI Express, officially abbreviated as PCIe or PCI-e, is a high-speed serial computer expansion bus standard, designed to replace the older PCI, PCI-X and AGP bus standards. It is the common motherboard interface for personal computers' graphics cards, sound cards, hard disk drive host adapters, SSDs, Wi-Fi and Ethernet hardware connections. PCIe has numerous improvements over the older standards, including higher maximum system bus throughput, lower I/O pin count and smaller physical footprint, better performance scaling for bus devices, a more detailed error detection and reporting mechanism, and native hot-swap functionality. More recent revisions of the PCIe standard provide hardware support for I/O virtualization.
In computing, a northbridge is a microchip that comprises the core logic chipset architecture on motherboards to handle high-performance tasks, especially for older personal computers. It is connected directly to a CPU via the front-side bus (FSB), and is usually used in conjunction with a slower southbridge to manage communication between the CPU and other parts of the motherboard.
The GeForce 6 series is the sixth generation of Nvidia's GeForce line of graphics processing units. Launched on April 14, 2004, the GeForce 6 family introduced PureVideo post-processing for video, SLI technology, and Shader Model 3.0 support.
LGA 775, also known as Socket T, is an Intel desktop CPU socket. Unlike PGA CPU sockets, such as its predecessor Socket 478, LGA 775 has no socket holes; instead, it has 775 protruding pins which touch contact points on the underside of the processor (CPU).
The nForce4 is a motherboard chipset released by Nvidia in October 2004. The chipset supports AMD 64-bit processors and Intel Pentium 4 LGA 775 processors.
Scalable Link Interface (SLI) is the brand name for a now discontinued multi-GPU technology developed by Nvidia for linking two or more video cards together to produce a single output. SLI is a parallel processing algorithm for computer graphics, meant to increase the available processing power.
Dell XPS is a line of consumer-oriented laptop and desktop computer series manufactured by Dell since 1993.
The nForce3 chipset was created by Nvidia as a Media and Communications Processor. Specifically, it was designed for use with the Athlon 64 processor.
AMD CrossFire is a brand name for the multi-GPU technology by Advanced Micro Devices, originally developed by ATI Technologies. The technology allows up to four GPUs to be used in a single computer to improve graphics performance.
The Radeon Xpress 200 is a computer chipset released by ATI. The chipset supports AMD 64-bit processors as well as supporting Intel Pentium 4, Pentium D and Celeron processors. Additionally, it includes support for DDR400 RAM and DDR-2 667 RAM on the Intel Edition.
The Xpress 3200 is a revision of the Xpress 200 computer chipset released by ATI. The chipset supports AMD64 processors for Socket 939 and Socket AM2.
The AMD Quad FX platform is an AMD platform targeted at enthusiasts which allows users to plug two Socket F Athlon 64 FX or 2-way Opteron processors (CPUs) into a single motherboard for a total of four physical cores. This is a type of dual processor setup, where two CPUs are installed on a motherboard to increase computing power. The major difference between the platform and past dual processor systems like Xeon is that each processor has its own dedicated memory stores. The Quad FX platform also has HyperTransport capability targeted toward consumer platforms.
AMD 580 chipset series is a computer chipset series designed by the AMD Graphics Product Group, for the AMD processors. It was designed for usage with ATI's CrossFire Multi GPU Technology, with both PCI Express slots running at x16 lanes each.
The nForce 600 chipset was released in the first half of November 2006, coinciding with the GeForce 8 series launch on November 8, 2006. The nForce 600 supports Intel's LGA 775 socket and AMD's Quad FX platform and replaces the nForce 500 series.
The AMD 700 chipset series is a set of chipsets designed by ATI for AMD Phenom processors to be sold under the AMD brand. Several members were launched in the end of 2007 and the first half of 2008, others launched throughout the rest of 2008.
Skulltrail is an enthusiast gaming platform released by Intel on February 19, 2008. It is based on Intel's 5400 "Seaburg" workstation chipset. The primary difference between Skulltrail and Intel's current and past enthusiast chipsets is a dual CPU socket design that allows two processors to operate on the same motherboard. Therefore, Skulltrail can operate eight processing cores on one system. The platform supports two Core 2 Extreme QX9775 processors, which operate at 3.2 GHz.
The nForce 700 is a chipset series designed by Nvidia first released in December 2007. The series supports both Intel Core 2 and AMD Phenom processors, and replaces the nForce 600 series chipsets. Several members were spotted, including the codenamed MCP72 for AMD processors and the C72 for Intel processors, launched with the name "nForce 780a" and "nForce 780i" chipsets respectively. Currently, the released variants are the 750i, 780i, 790i, and 790i Ultra.
The HP Pavilion dv9000 was a model series of laptops manufactured by Hewlett-Packard Company that featured 16:10 17.0" diagonal displays.
The AMD 900 chipset series is identical to the AMD 800 chipset series except for the fact that it is only found on Socket AM3+ mainboards, whereas its predecessor is only found on Socket AM3 mainboards. It was released in 2011.
On June 26, 2007, Dell released the new Inspiron desktop series, under the Dell Inspiron branding, as a replacement to the Dell Dimension desktop computers.
