Benefits of PCI
PCI represents a needed standard in the desktop computer industry. Because the PCI bus uses the same architecture and protocols to communicate with I/O chips and with plug-in expansion cards, it reduces the cost and complexity of computer hardware. It lets CPU manufacturers provide expandability at minimum cost.
The establishment of the PCI bus standard has benefits for developers of peripheral equipment, too. These benefits include
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delivering a high level of bus performance, enough for most current I/O needs
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letting peripheral equipment developers produce expansion cards that can operate with both Macintosh computers and computers that use other operating systems
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encouraging the large-scale marketing of chips compatible with PCI, which tends to reduce the component cost of peripheral equipment
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providing a relatively simple method for automatically configuring external devices into the user's system during system startup
© 1999 Apple Computer, Inc. – (Last Updated 26 March 99)
