Peripheral card slots

A typical motherboard of 2009 will have a different number of connections depending on its standard.

A standard ATX motherboard will typically have 1x PCI-E 16x connection for a graphics card, 2x PCI slots for various expansion cards, and 1x PCI-E 1x (which will eventually supersede PCI). A standard EATX motherboard will have 1x PCI-E 16x connection for a graphics card, and a varying number of PCI and PCI-E 1x slots. It can sometimes also have a PCI-E 4x slot. (This varies between brands and models.)

Some motherboards have 2x PCI-E 16x slots, to allow more than 2 monitors without special hardware, or use a special graphics technology called SLI (for Nvidia) and Crossfire (for ATI). These allow 2 graphics cards to be linked together, to allow better performance in intensive graphical computing tasks, such as gaming and video editing.

As of 2007, virtually all motherboards come with at least 4x USB ports on the rear, with at least 2 connections on the board internally for wiring additional front ports that are built into the computer's case. Ethernet is also included now. This is a standard networking cable for connecting the computer to a network or a modem. A sound chip is always included on the motherboard, to allow sound output without the need for any extra components. This allows computers to be far more multimedia-based than before. Cheaper machines now often have their graphics chip built into the motherboard rather than a separate card.