I am currently involved in the process of selecting the best components for a new build. I have been at it for a long time now researching various articles on Google. I came into this with barely any knowledge of PC components and it is tremendously frustrating.
Please correct me if I'm wrong.
I have found that the CPU has two types of speed. There's an internal speed which is how its advertised. Then there is a Front Side Bus.
This Front Side Bus always seems to be much slower than the CPU internal speed. Is there a reason why this is so? This means that a CPU is able to actually do a lot more work than it can simply because it is operating at the FSB frequency. I also understand that CPU internal speeds are locked, however the FSB can be changed to gain maximum performance.
My questions are, why is the FSB slow? This is clearly a bottleneck. And how can one match the CPU maximum FSB with the maximum FSB supported by the Motherboard? Also, how does RAM play into this?
It has been atleast 2 months of learning, confusion, and the PC I started out building, still is not making sense what components to buy. Why are the CPUs so fast, but only limited by the FSB? Does this mean that I could use my old Pentium 4 to the maximum of its abilities by putting in the fastest supported Motherboard/RAM combination to squeeze out the maximum performance?
I also have a Pentium 3, 933Mhz processor. The Motherboard however only operates at 133 MHz. I was told by a friend that CPUs are quite powerful and that its usually what they are attached to that slows them down. So why don't the Motherboard/RAM manufacturers attempt to match the CPU speeds to eliminate these bottlenecks?
This means that it is probably more economical to buy a slower processor, with the fastest supported FSB Motherboard and RAM combo, rather than a processor which will be bottlenecked by current available motherboards.
If anyone has links which I can read up on how to match CPUs with Motherboards and RAM, I would appreciate that very much. 2 months into it now and I am struggling to organize the facts. This endeavor has been a tough one, but as my first, I would like to continue my research so I can build a system that is most efficient performance wise. Please advise me on this.
Please correct me if I'm wrong.
I have found that the CPU has two types of speed. There's an internal speed which is how its advertised. Then there is a Front Side Bus.
This Front Side Bus always seems to be much slower than the CPU internal speed. Is there a reason why this is so? This means that a CPU is able to actually do a lot more work than it can simply because it is operating at the FSB frequency. I also understand that CPU internal speeds are locked, however the FSB can be changed to gain maximum performance.
My questions are, why is the FSB slow? This is clearly a bottleneck. And how can one match the CPU maximum FSB with the maximum FSB supported by the Motherboard? Also, how does RAM play into this?
It has been atleast 2 months of learning, confusion, and the PC I started out building, still is not making sense what components to buy. Why are the CPUs so fast, but only limited by the FSB? Does this mean that I could use my old Pentium 4 to the maximum of its abilities by putting in the fastest supported Motherboard/RAM combination to squeeze out the maximum performance?
I also have a Pentium 3, 933Mhz processor. The Motherboard however only operates at 133 MHz. I was told by a friend that CPUs are quite powerful and that its usually what they are attached to that slows them down. So why don't the Motherboard/RAM manufacturers attempt to match the CPU speeds to eliminate these bottlenecks?
This means that it is probably more economical to buy a slower processor, with the fastest supported FSB Motherboard and RAM combo, rather than a processor which will be bottlenecked by current available motherboards.
If anyone has links which I can read up on how to match CPUs with Motherboards and RAM, I would appreciate that very much. 2 months into it now and I am struggling to organize the facts. This endeavor has been a tough one, but as my first, I would like to continue my research so I can build a system that is most efficient performance wise. Please advise me on this.