Front Side Bus question

flyriceflyrice
edited February 2005 in Hardware
Apologies if this is in the wrong forum.

I've been wondering for a while, what exactly does the Front Side Bus do for your rig? Why does its speed matter? How can you tell what your FSB speed is? And then, is it possible to increase the speed (ie OC it)?

Comments

  • mmonninmmonnin Centreville, VA
    edited January 2005
    Its the connection between your the RAM and your Northbridge basically. The faster, the quicker your CPU can read/write data to RAM.

    Download CPU-Z. It will tell you what your FSB is.
  • flyriceflyrice
    edited January 2005
    Thanky. On an AMD Athlon 64, is HTT the equivalent of the FSB speed?
  • mmonninmmonnin Centreville, VA
    edited January 2005
    Somewhat. I have never used an 64-bit AMD system so I cant say. Others have tho.
  • Omega65Omega65 Philadelphia, Pa
    edited February 2005
    flyrice wrote:
    Thanky. On an AMD Athlon 64, is HTT the equivalent of the FSB speed?
    Yes. Normally HTT is 200mhz (x5) = 1000mhz effective mhz. (Depending on your motherboard when OCing this multiple can be reduced to x4, x3 or even x2 to maintain stability )

    Memory normally operates at a ratio of 1:1 Mem:HTT = 200:200 (DDR400)
    If your motherboard allows you can select nominal ratios 5:6, 4:6 or 3:6 (166:200, 133:200 or 100:200 or DDR333, DDR266 or DDR200)
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited February 2005
    I have the MSI board referenced in Omega65's sig. There is a setting in the bios called "HT Frequency" with an option of between 1X and 5X.

    Do they mean "HTT"? (It wouldn't be the first time there was a mispelled word in an MSI bios...)

    What should I set this at? I have an A64-3500+ and PC3200 ram of good quality.
  • Omega65Omega65 Philadelphia, Pa
    edited February 2005
    profdlp wrote:
    I have the MSI board referenced in Omega65's sig. There is a setting in the bios called "HT Frequency" with an option of between 1X and 5X.

    Do they mean "HTT"? (It wouldn't be the first time there was a mispelled word in an MSI bios...)

    What should I set this at? I have an A64-3500+ and PC3200 ram of good quality.
    Yes they mean HTT Multiplier. They may have just HT for HyperTransport Frequency. HTT = HyperTransport Technology - so it can be either or. If you're OCing set it to 3x otherwise set it to either 5x (Latest CPUs) or 4x (Older CPUs).

    Usually (but not always) your HTT link will crap out if the multilplied frequency is >1100mhz
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited February 2005
    Just to be technically nitpicky.

    HT is CPU-to-chipset, and the FSB is memory-to-CPU. The only way the HT bus is related to the FSB is in the fact that HT is a multiplier of the FSB clock, electronically they are separate and perform separate functions.
  • Omega65Omega65 Philadelphia, Pa
    edited February 2005
    Thrax wrote:
    Just to be technically nitpicky.

    HT is CPU-to-chipset, and the FSB is memory-to-CPU. The only way the HT bus is related to the FSB is in the fact that HT is a multiplier of the FSB clock, electronically they are separate and perform separate functions.

    Chipset<=>HTT<=>CPU<=>HTT<=>Memory

    Athlon 64 dont have a FSB. Memory clock is also derived from the HTT Frequency. It's based on the CPU Multiplier and a CPU selected memory divisor that's closest to the memory ratio selected in the BIOS
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