few basic questions

[rici1]

Hiya all,
May I ask a few basic questions please? Forgive me but I have a lot to learn!

1) Chipsets: What are they and what do they do? ie:North Bridge, South Bridge...

2)CPU's: currently AMD's are 32bit, newer ones will be 64bit. Is this how many bits of data travel in/out of the CPU at the clock speed of the processor?

3) Graphics cards: I am looking at graphics cards and see that say Hercules have a Radeon 9200 as do Saphire. Does this mean to say that ATI make the chips and that Hercules and Saphire make the cards using ATI's technology?

4)Bus speeds: Mine is 266Mhz. This is the speed at which data travels through the the Buses, eg at 266million times a second?

Anyway, sorry if seem dumb but I am trying... :rolleyes:
rich

[sm8000]

Chipsets are chips (consisting of a North and South Bridge) controlling all motherboard activity and routing data to and from attached peripherals.

I'll leave the CPU and FSB questions to those better versed.

As for video cards, nVidia makes the chips and other companies make the cards for them. Same for ATi, but they make their own cards as well (nVidia doesn't). Matrox and SiS make their own chips and cards (no 3rd party card makers).

Hope this is a start for you! :t

[rangeral]

Believe the 32 and 64bit is more of how wide the channel or channels are the signal moves thru, bus is more of a cycle yours is 266 so with an amd its going one way at 133 and coming back 133 doubling the speed vs the previous method of going just one way and waiting for the next one.

[csamuels]

Originally posted by rici1
2)CPU's: currently AMD's are 32bit, newer ones will be 64bit. Is this how many bits of data travel in/out of the CPU at the clock speed of the processor?


For the 64 bit processor, on one clock pulse it is able to send / receive 64bits. You have the right idea.

[ukulele]

Four questions is more then a few. ;) Actually you asked five questions. Is this your birthday?

[rici1]

Thanks for all you replies!
ukulele- My birthdays July 4. I have to know how every single do-hickie, thingamabob, knob, button, pipe, hell even the screws work on anything! Its just how I am, just wait until I really get going! He he...
Thanks for all your help! :)

[ukulele]

I'm the same way rici1. Actually you answers were pretty good so far. As for the 266mhz question, actually it referes to the internal speed of the the cpu. The motherboard bus speed is half that. A modern cpu has a front side bus and a backside bus. It is all to do with the L1 and L2 cache and how they move data around in the cpu.