Tidbits

Compiled by Lori Robison

Graphics & Design by Andria Schultz & Carrie Benes

Catch The Right Bus

here are several buses in your comTto and
puter, all designed to transport data
from the components in your
system. At its most basic level, a bus is
nothing more than a collection of aluminum wires that transmit all the ones
and zeros comprising a computers data.
Each bus has two main parts: a data bus,
which transmits the actual data, and an
address bus, which transmits information about where the data should go.

When discussing how fast data travels

through a bus, we typically look at the
number of wires that make up the data
bus, as well as the bus controllers clock
speed (bus controllers are specialized microchips that direct the flow of data traffic
around your motherboard). A 16-bit bus,
for example, contains 16 separate wires
that each transmit a single bit of data (for
a total of two bytes of information)
during each clock cycle. So, if a bus

The designers of the 32-bit AGP (Accelerated

Graphics Port) standard crafted it specifically to work
with graphics cards, giving them direct access to a computers RAM for even speedier data transfer rates.

Bus Width
Controller
Clock Speed
Top Data
Transfer Speed

AGP
32 bits

AGP2X
32 bits

AGP4X
32 bits

66MHz

66MHz x2

66MHz x4

264MBps

528MBps

1,056MBps

S DR A
M

Many motherboards have a

dedicated memory bus that
forms a direct conduit from the
memory to the motherboard
chipset, where data goes to
reach the system bus and move
on to the CPU.

MCH
Memory
Controller Hub

AGP

The Input/Output Bus

connects a PCs internal
storage devices, expansion
slots, and peripheral ports
to the CPU. In this diagram, the I/O (input
/output) bus transfers data
from these devices through
a special hub (part of the
motherboard chipset)
before sending it on to the
CPU and memory.

The system bus is the main data pathway that

runs from your systems CPU to its memory.
Most of todays systems have bus widths of 64 bits,
but the bus capacity is often measured by its clock
speed, such as 66MHz, 100MHz, 133MHz, and the
400MHz buses found in Pentium 4 systems.

Bus Width
Controller
Clock Speed
Top Data
Transfer Speed

controllers clock runs at 8MHz , or 8

million cycles per second, a 16-bit bus
will be able to transmit data at speeds up
to a maximum of 16MBps (megabytes
per second).
Motherboards from different companies and with different form factors may
contain different types of buses.
However, the diagram below shows
some of the bus standards youre likely
to find inside most PCs.

Pentium II
64 bits

Pentium III
64 bits

Pentium 4
64 bits

66MHz

100MHz

400MHz

528MBps

800MBps

3,200MBps

CPU

Outdated Buses
ISA (Industry Standard Architecture)
Tbuseshe16-bit
expansion bus was one of the first
created for personal computers.
Located on the motherboard, the ISA bus is
connected to long, black expansion slots,

Bus Name
ISA (Industry Standard Architecture)
EISA (Enhanced ISA)
MCA (Micro-Channel Architecture)
VLB (VESA Local Bus)

USB (Universal Serial Bus)

Bus Width
Controller Clock Speed
Top Data Transfer Speed

which you can use to plug in expansion

boards for older sound cards and modems.
Since the creation of ISA in the early 1980s, PC
architects have developed other busses as well,
including EISA (Enhanced ISA), MCA (Micro-

Bus Width
8 bits/16 bits
32 bits
32 bits
32 bits

Controller Clock Speed

8.3MHz
8.3MHz
10MHz
33MHz

Serial
48MHz
12MBps

Channel Architecture), and VLB (VESA [Video

Electronics Standards Association] Local Bus).
The PCI bus and other newer standards have
almost completely supplanted ISA, MCA, and
VLB standards in new PCs.

Top Data Transfer Speed

8.3/16.6MBps
33MBps
40MBps
132MBps

Two types of external busses (data pathways that

enable a peripheral to communicate with your
computer) have emerged in recent years to meet
the demands of modern computer users. Both the
USB and the IEEE 1394 high-speed serial bus standards transfer data at speeds up to 12Mbps and
400Mbps, respectively.

PCI (Peripheral Component Interconnect)

Bus Width
32 bits/64 bits
Controller
Clock Speed
33MHz/66MHz
Top Data
Transfer Speed
132/528MBps

IEEE 1394 (also called FireWire)

Bus Width
Serial
Controller Clock Speed
--Top Data Transfer Speed
400MBps

ICH
I/O Controller
Hub
The PCI bus (another local bus),
features a more direct data
pathway to the motherboard, and
therefore, a faster data transfer rate
than is possible with ISA, EISA, or
MCA. PCI busses connect to special
PCI expansion slots, which appear
in virtually all systems made today.
Network cards, modems, sound
cards, and other integral components often use PCI technology.

Bus Width
Controller Clock Speed
Top Data Transfer Speed

IDE (Integrated Drive

Electronics of ATA-Advanced
Technology Attachment)
16 bits
4.15MHz
8.3MBps

EIDE (Extended IDE

or Fast ATA)
16 bits
8.3MHz
16.6MBps

Ultra-ATA/33
16 bits
33MBps
16MHz

Ultra-ATA/66
16 bits
66MBps
33MHz