What is Bus Speed?
| Processor To Memory Speeds |
|
The speeds of the bus that connects the processor to main memory (RAM). As processors have become faster and faster, the system bus has become one of the chief bottlenecks in modern PCs. Typical BUS-Speeds are 66 MHz, 100 MHz, 133 MHz or 400 MHz. The 100MHz clock speeds of the components generally between the processor and the PCI slots will speed up significantly. That's approx. 50% when going from the typical 66MHz BUS-Speeds to 100MHz. This speed up includes your most important components like the motherboard chipset, the level 2 cache and the main memory. It's debatable that these changes will effect your PCI devices, which typically run at ½ your BUS-Speeds. Most PCI devices run fine at 33MHz, but begin to get real flaky when pushed beyond. This issue may be avoided by running PCI cards at 1/3 the BUS-Speeds to maintain their 33MHz sweet spot. Accelerated Graphics Port (AGP) video cards will also benefit from this increase. If you haven't figured it out yet, your processor speed is simply a multiple of your BUS-Speeds. For example, a K6-200 currently runs a 66MHz BUS-Speeds that uses a multiplier jumper setting of 3X to multiply the BUS-Speeds up to 200MHz for use by the processor. This equates to a 66MHz x 3 = 200MHz setting. So the upcoming K6-300 processors that promises to utilize the 100Mhz speed will also utilize a 3X multiplier (3x100Mhz=300MHz). |
Beginner's Help
BUG Club Home
