What is a memory bus?

The memory bus connects the memory system and the northbridge area of ​​the chipset. This section of the chipset also connects directly to the central processing unit and graphics system. While this means that the North Bridge is the center of many important computer functions, it is actually the computer’s memory that determines the speed of the bus. In essence, the speed of the computer’s memory creates the speed of that bus, which determines the speed of the rest of the system.

Most modern computers have a large number of buses that connect all sorts of different areas.

In computing, a bus transfers information from one place to another. Most modern computers have a large number of buses that connect all sorts of different areas. The north bridge area of ​​the chipset has four main buses. The front side bus connects to the central processing unit, the graphics bus connects to the graphics system, the internal bus connects to the south bridge section of the chipset, and the memory bus connects to the motherboard memory. computer.

Each of these buses acts independently of each other in most cases. The biggest exception to this is the memory and front-end buses. They control the most essential parts of the computer’s operations and are directly linked to each other. The speed of your computer’s memory determines how fast information flows through the memory bus. This means that the processor can only send and receive information as fast as the memory bus allows.

Using memory slower than the processor will have a direct impact on the speed of the computer. Basic calculations will often sit idle and take up processor space while waiting for trace information. This can create periods of latency, even on a fast computer. Interestingly, the most strenuous operations are rarely affected by a slow memory bus, since the time it takes for the processor to compete with your operations is usually greater than the transfer time.

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On a technical level, the memory bus is made up of two parts. The data bus transfers information between the memory and the chipset. This part of the bus is often incorrectly called the memory bus, since it performs the work most often associated with this part.

The second part of the memory bus is the address bus. The address bus tells the system where information can be stored as it enters memory and where the information is when it needs to leave memory. The speed of the address bus affects all actions on a computer, since all applications need some access to memory. Regardless of how fast this information gets in and out of the system, it is limited by the speed at which the address bus routes it.

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