Accelerator board

A printed circuit board that enhances a computer's performance by substituting a faster microprocessor without replacing the entire motherboard and associated components. Also called accelerator card.

An accelerator board is a computer peripheral that can increase processing power beyond what the central processing unit (CPU) would otherwise be capable of. These expansion boards historically carried faster CPUs and floating-point units (FPUs) that could increase the overall speed of a computer or assist in math intensive tasks. In some cases, an accelerator board would carry a newer or faster version of the main CPU. Today, most accelerator boards use graphics processing units (GPUs) to speed up visual displays and render three dimensional images. Modern zero insertion force (ZIF) CPUs can be easily upgraded without special tools, which accomplishes much the same purpose as installing an expansion board with a second general purpose processor.