What Does Accelerator Board Mean?
An accelerator board is an expansion board that provides an interface designed to increase processing power. It is a device that accelerates transmission or processing beyond the CPU's capabilities.
The accelerator board transmits faster floating-point units (FPUs) by assisting in math calculations or by increasing speed. Most accelerator boards use graphics processing units (GPUs) for 3-D images or faster graphic displays.
Without an expansion board, the CPU relies on software to implement certain tasks such as transferring images. The CPU processes an image sequentially, which can drastically slow down operations.
The most widespread use of an accelerator board is for graphic processing. Although a motherboard usually has a graphic chipset, it is normally inadequate for performing substantial graphic tasks such as 3-D imaging for video games. When an accelerator board is used for graphics it is considered a dedicated GPU processing unit.
An accelerator board may also be known as an accelerator card.
