Is the FSB part of the MoBo's Chipset?Closed

Question

Hello,

I've been reading these articles at your site and have found them really helpful!
https://ccm.net/contents/401-pc-personal-computer

I'm stuck on a couple of things on how exactly some compents work!

Is the Front Side Bus part of the Mother boards chipset? From what I gather the chipset is the pathway for the FSB and the other buses to comunicate with everything but is the FSB actually part of the chipsets assemble?

Also, does the microprocessor, FSB, and DIMMs all have to be at the same speeds and bandwiths size? (32bits or 64bits)

Any help would be great! I'm currently studying for my A+ cert.

Thanks!

xpcman · Answer

Yes the FSB in controlled by and contained in the chipset.  The FSB frequency and the CPU multiplier together control the CPU speed. The chipset generates the timing signals the allow all the parts of the computer to work together.  The BIOS in turn contains the basic control programs to make the chipset function. 

The memory controller is in the chipset and  depending on the chipset may or may not be linked to the FSB frequency.
But AMD chipsets do not use the same FSB concept and have the memory controller on the CPU as do the latest Intel CPUs.

You might want to read-up on the concept of "north-bridge" and "south-bridge" the two main chips that do all or most of the work in a "chipset".

I hope this helps some.

Armored_Core · Answer

Ok, I thinking I'm starting to get it.

I'm still a little confused on somethings though,

So its the multipler on a processor times the MHz of the FSB that equals the speed of a processor?

Also, when we talk about a 64bit operating system how does this effect the hardware, does it mean that the FSB and the processor are 64bit?

Thanks for the help!

xpcman · Answer

Correct on the processor speed for Intel CPUs.  AMD CPUs don't work quite the same and don't use the FSB to control the CPU frequency.

64 bit really refers to the number of bits used in the memory addressing.  More bits equals the ability to address more memory.   A 32 bit processor / operating system is limited to about 4 GB of memory address space total.  Windows XP uses some of the space and the memory on the video card must also use some of the "address space".  So if you have  4 GB of physical memory on a 32 bit system Windows will show only about 3.4 to 3.7 MB of usable memory for application programs.

Armored_Core · Answer

Didn't know that about memory addressing, thanks! *Goes looks up more about memory addressing*

I know the OS has to be 64bit but does the FSB, Processor or Memory bus or other buses have to be 64bit compatible?

Also, since a 32bit system can only hanlde up to 4GBs doesn't that mean that a 64bit system could only handle twice that much since its double the bits? 

I guess though that in a 64bit system the buses in the computer would have bigger bandwidths for more memory addressing and at a rate of 64bits that would be a lot more? Hope I got that right?

Thank you very much, I really appreciate the help!

xpcman · Answer

Not twice the memory 64 bits in theory allows 16 exabytes  (16,000,000 GB) but there are limits built into the CPUs and chip sets

Is the FSB part of the MoBo's Chipset?

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