TestOut LabSim A+ Certification Practice Exam

Which expansion bus is ideal for high-speed graphics applications?

1. PCI

2. AGP

3. PCIe

4. ISA

The correct answer is: PCIe

The expansion bus that is ideal for high-speed graphics applications is PCIe, or Peripheral Component Interconnect Express. PCIe was designed to replace older bus standards and offers significantly higher data transfer rates. This improvement is especially important for graphics applications that require substantial bandwidth to efficiently transmit large amounts of data between the graphics card and the motherboard. PCIe achieves this through its architecture, which uses multiple lanes for communication. Each lane consists of a pair of wires, one for sending and one for receiving data, allowing for full-duplex communication. The more lanes that are used, the higher the potential data throughput. This characteristic makes PCIe the preferred choice for modern graphics cards, 3D applications, and gaming since it can handle the high demands of these applications more effectively than older standards. In contrast, AGP (Accelerated Graphics Port) was specifically designed for graphics cards but has been largely surpassed by PCIe in terms of speed and versatility. PCI, while still used, offers lower speeds and bandwidth compared to both AGP and PCIe. ISA (Industry Standard Architecture) is an even older standard that is now largely obsolete and does not support the speeds required for modern graphic applications. Therefore, PCIe is the clear choice for high-speed graphics needs.