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Motherboard's System Bus: Detailed Explanation
Hardware Informationby CPYW | Team
Motherboard consists of several system buses. A bus is a connection pathway between two or more computer elements that used for data communication within a computer. A computer system has different buses that hierarchy arranged. A chipset used as a bridge between various buses.
There are several main buses available in a motherboard:
Front Side Bus (FSB)
Front side bus also called the processor bus. Front side bus used by processor to pass information to and from cache or main memory and the North Bridge chipset. Front side bus has is a highest speed bus compared to other bus. It is located at the core of chipset and motherboard. Front Side Bus normally 64 bits wide and runs usually at 66, 100, 133, 200, 266, 400, 533, 800MHz.
AGP (Accelerated Graphics Port) Bus
AGP bus is a bus that used specifically for video / graphic card. It is a high speed 32-bit bus. AGP bus runs at 66MHz (AGP 1x), 133MHz (AGP 2x), 266MHz (AGP 4x), or 533MHz (AGP 8x). AGP interface is usually onboard and use a direct connection between the memory controller hub of the chipset and the video chipset. This procedure used to share your system memory as a video memory. It developed by Intel.
PCI Express Bus
PCI Express is a high-speed serial I/O interconnect standard being developed by the PCI-SIG (www.pcisig.com) as an eventual replacement for the original PCI standard. The initial version of PCI Express supports 0.8V signaling at 2.5GHz.
PCI Express bus is a high speed serial bus designed to replace PCI and AGP. This bus used for video / graphic card, just like AGP bus. But it is far more powerful than AGP. Most recent video / graphic cards use PCI Express technology to produce several improvements on graphic processing that will produce better quality graphics than AGP video card. The PCI Express interface available externally is using PCI Express Cards via PCI Express Card Slot.
PCI (Peripheral Component Interconnect) Bus
PCI is a standard bus specification initially developed by Intel in 1992 that bypasses the standard ISA I/O bus and uses the system bus to increase the bus clock speed and take full advantage of the CPU's data path.
PCI bus is usually a 33MHz 32-bit bus. PCI bus is available in a desktop system as a collection of 32-bit slots, which usually white and numbering from four to six on most motherboard. This bus is generated by either the North Bridge chipset in North / South Bridge chipset or the I/O controller hub in chipset using hub architecture.
LPC (Low Pin Count) Bus
LPC bus is a 33MHz 4-bit bus that has a maximum bandwidth of 16.67MBps designed as an economical onboard replacement for the ISA bus. LPC is faster than ISA and yet uses far fewer pins and enables ISA to be eliminated from the board entirely. In LPC system, the LPC bus used to connect motherboard ROM BIOS components to the main chipset.
Memory Bus
Memory bus is a bus used to transfer information between the CPU and system memory (RAM). Memory bus is connected to the motherboard chipset North Bridge or memory controller hub chip. North Bridge runs the memory bus at various speeds, depending on the type of memory that your chipset (and, therefore, the motherboard) is designed to handle. The best speed is for the memory bus to run at the same speed as the processor bus (FSB).
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Motherboard's System Bus: Detailed Explanation
NAVIGATION | Home > Computer Tips > Hardware Tips > Motherboard's System Bus: Detailed Explanation