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General discussion

Confused by "front side bus"

Sep 26, 2004 1:05PM PDT

I was looking at a Biostar mother board here:
http://www.directron.com/p4vtb.html

It says it can go up to an 800 Mhz Front side bus. I know this depends on what type of Intel cpu I get. But the specifications state that I'm to use ddr 400 ram. I know that DDR means double data rate. So is this how an 800 Mhz front side bus is achieved? The mother board also supports 533 and 400 Mhz. So does these bus speeds depend on the type of Intel cpu I get? I know different processors have different bus speeds, but I'm trying to understand how the bus works. Thanks in advance. If this is a double post, sorry about that. I thought I posted earlier, but I don't see my post here.

Discussion is locked

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wow, Ray
Sep 28, 2004 4:05AM PDT

You had eye surgery THIS morning, and you're on the computer? Hope everything turns out OK. I've had surgery in my left eye to relieve the pressure for glaucoma, so I know it's no picnic.

Speaking of eyes, last time I saw the eye doc, she recommended bi-focals, cuz I can't see small print up close, or far away for that matter. She asked me if I spent alot of time in front of a computer. LOL!

Feel better, get some rest. Thanks as always for your input. And stop getting all technical on me talking about waveforms! Happy Hope you have a quick recovery.

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Hi Brandon
Sep 28, 2004 5:00AM PDT

Cataract removal surgery is minor compared to what you had. But I will have to ease off in a little while. Using only my right eye and I can't close it due to an operation in July. [eyes don't like not being closed /blinking frequently] I tape it closed at night. Do you get the idea that I am getting old and well over the hill?

I just talked to an Intel tech guy. I was annoyed when the Intel guy that you talked to said he never heard of two FSBs from MCH to CPU. The person I talked said it is actually FOUR 100 MHz busses [DDR times 2 = 200 times four busses = 800]. Thus your guy was correct he never heard of two busses. LOL

Of course the guy that I talked to could be the one that is incorrect. I had seen an article via google that portrayed the concept via a sine wave clock [which relly makes no sense] so I told this guy that my understanding of a clock is a rectangular wave whose leading or triling edge is used to clock data in from the data lines. He said it is and then mentioned that they have four of them each on a 100 MHz data bus. Apparently only the data bus is quad clocked. The address bus is double clocked.