PCI... AMR... what's the difference?

[Szech]

I'm sure a lot of you are the "computer guy/girl" of your circle of friends/family. When something's wrong with a computer, or someone needs a computer built, someone will say, "Go to (fill in your name here)." Nevermind that you've got a life of your own. (sigh) Believe me, I'm in the same boat.

Anyway, I ramble on. I'm building two computers for friends, and since they'll only be doing basic computing (no hardcore gaming or number crunching), I'm using 810 chipset motherboards. They have AMR slots, and I was wondering what these are good for exactly. The term Audio Modem Riser implies it could be a sound card / modem combo, but I've only seen modems fitted for this slot. So if that's all they're good for, why did Intel make this slot, and not simply put in another PCI? Is the AMR to modems what the AGP is to video cards?

[Brydon]

As far as I am aware the slot is for a modem and the sound card is built in to the mobo. The modem is a software one.

[Szech]

Software modem? I don't follow...

[Brydon]

Instead of there being a full chipset on the modem which costs more they use the system cpu to do the work instead. Most PCI software modems (winmodems) need a 300mhz cpu to run. I wouldn't worry about it unless you were a hardcore online gamer though...if it is set upright you won't notice much difference http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/smile.gif.

[Szech]

Cool, thanks for the info.