Slot

Updated: 09/12/2023 by Computer Hope

A slot may refer to any of the following:

1. With SD (Secure Digital) or other memory cards, a slot is the hole the card is placed into. See our card reader term for further information.

2. A slot is an opening for a CD-ROM (compact disc read-only memory), DVD (digital versatile disc), and other disc drives that do not use a tray. See our slot load disc drive definition for further information.

3. A slot is a computer processor connection designed to make upgrading the processor easier, where the user would only have to slide a processor into a slot. The original slot, or Slot 1 (pictured below), was released by the Intel Corporation in 1997 as a successor to Socket 8. Later, AMD released another slot processor known as Slot A in 1999. Both slots look similar but are not compatible. Later, Intel released Slot 2, a bigger slot used with the later versions of the Pentium II processors. Today, slot processors are no longer found in new computers and are replaced by sockets.

Intel Slot 1 slot

4. A slot is another name for an expansion slot, such as an ISA (Industry Standard Architecture), PCI (peripheral component interconnect), or AGP (accelerated graphics port) slot, and may also describe the memory slots. See the motherboard definition for a visual example of all of these slots.

Bank, CPU terms, Memory terms, Motherboard terms