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What's a side bus? (1 Viewer)

Jacob_St

Second Unit
Joined
Jan 15, 2000
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I don't understand what a side bus is. I keep reading about it in computer ads but I don't have a clue what it does. Does it make the processor go faster?
Signed,
A clueless idiot who's trying to build his own computer. :)
[Edited last by Jacob_St on August 25, 2001 at 11:30 PM]
 

Chris

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Jul 4, 1997
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What it probably says is "Front Side Bus" like 133Mhz FSB or 200Mhz FSB or 266Mhz FSB, etc..
Front Side Bus is the speed in which the processor interacts with the onboard chipset.
So, an AMD T-Bird 1.3G is either 200Mhz (FSB) * 6.5 OR it's a 266Mhz * 5. Etc.
Does this make more sense?
 

Glenn Overholt

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Mar 24, 1999
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It's the maximum speed that the motherboard can go. If you should upgrade it later, this is what could happen. If you have a bus of 100mhz, and you buy memory that runs at 133, you're wasting the 33mhz. The other end would be if the board ran at 133. In this case you do not want to add memory running at 100, because it will slow your system down. Easy?
Glenn
 

Jacob_St

Second Unit
Joined
Jan 15, 2000
Messages
259
Thanks Chris and Glen for helping me out.
I think I'm starting to understand. So it has to do with the RAM memory you buy? For example, if I decide to upgrade the RAM on my computer the FSB speed must match the speed of the new RAM. Is there anyway to upgrade a FSB or do you have to replace the whole motherboard to do it?
 

Matt DeVillier

Supporting Actor
Joined
Sep 3, 1999
Messages
773
the FSB speed is the speed at which the the CPU interfaces with the motherboard chipset (specifically the northbridge). With older motherboard chipsets, the FSB and memory bus speed used to be tied together. this is not the case anymore. With current Athlon chipsets, the FSB is 200MHz or 266MHz, and the memory can be 100MHz, 133MHz, or 266MHz (not counting overclocked speeds). With the new P4 chipsets, the FSB is 400MHz, and the memory bus is at 266MHz (PC2100 DDR) or 800MHz (RDRAM).
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