When did FSB die?

[Psittac]

Long ago when I first got into clocking it was all about FSB, the new 64-bit athlons had just come out and were giving at the time mind breaking numbers.

I was just curious what was the last chip to run with fsb and what were the max numbers ever hit?

 

[Special7]

The Athlon XP's were the last to use a traditional FSB I believe, they topped out at 200MHz (400MHz doubled).

 

[Psittac]

I managed to hit 230ish on pc2700 memory, couldn't afford the standard pc3200 of the day. But i'm pretty sure the next generation had fsb but I seam to think they may have had some kind of hyper link or something, I really don't remember. The athlon xp's were able to hit 250ish if I remember correctly but the 64-bits were like 275+

I went on hwbot and found the max speed for ddr1 was 440, I honestly don't understand how that could be done

 

[trents]

The FSB died with the advent of the Athlon 64 series when the memory controller was moved from the motherboard to the CPU die to give us what we now know as the IMC (Integrated Memory Controller). With this architectural change the FSB became the HT Reference. In those days, (Athlon 64 and Athlon 64 X2) AMD CPU outperformed Intels.

 

[BeepBeep2]

HyperTransport replaced the traditional Front-Side Bus in 2003 with Athlon 64 / Socket 754

 

[Psittac]

ahhhhh ok, I guess I didn't know enough about it at the time.

I do know they were getting crazy memory clocks but I guess it wasn't technically FSB

 

[wagex]

what is thie fsb you speak of?

 

[trents]

ahhhhh ok, I guess I didn't know enough about it at the time.

I do know they were getting crazy memory clocks but I guess it wasn't technically FSB

Stock FSB frequency (veteran overclockers still call it that) has been 200 mhz for a long time now. On black edition CPUs you can overclock with the CPU multiplier and never have to touch the FSB. Are you confusing the FSB/HT Reference with the HT Link frequency which with current AMD CPUs is 2000-2200 mhz?

 

[Psittac]

Stock FSB frequency (veteran overclockers still call it that) has been 200 mhz for a long time now. On black edition CPUs you can overclock with the CPU multiplier and never have to touch the FSB. Are you confusing the FSB/HT Reference with the HT Link frequency which with current AMD CPUs is 2000-2200 mhz?

When I started overclocking it was FSB and multiplier, you could adjust volts and memory timings but thats what everything was. I had a mobile athlon xp barton core which I could get 10x235 for 2.3ghz or 13x222 for 2.8ghz. For the day that was pretty good esp considering I had a budget build.

But yeah I think the 64-bit athlons had some HT, not sure I didn't have one at the time just wish I did.

The next PC I built was an intel pentium D and the only way to clock that was FSB. locked at 14x and I think I hit up to 250 for 3.5ghz

But yes standard FSB was 200

 

[BeepBeep2]

I don't know any veteran overclockers calling HT Ref. Clock FSB.
I don't see any of them calling BCLK FSB either.

The last time intel used FSB, it was Core 2, but they "quad pumped" the real bus and the FSB was only a reference for the 4x multi, like the CPU.

FSB connects CPU to Northbridge usually, where northbridge would control memory, AGP, PCI-E, etc. Then the Northbridge and Southbridge would have its own bus.

Now HT connects CPU to Northbridge (A64 also had CPU control memory), and also connects the Northbridge to Southbridge, opens up NB/SB to do more or less. Like, modern southbridges also control PCI-E and graphics busses, and most peripherals on the southbridge now work over PCI-E lanes.

Intel's new QPI system works a bit different from HT. AMD FM sockets' UMI bus works similarly to QPI.

It is just a radically different network of how components communicate and what components are controlled by what clock.

 

[trents]

A lot of veteran overclockers still use the term FSB to refer to the HT Reference, even though it's technically incorrect because for overclocking purposes it still works. When I buy store brand facial tissues I still call it "Kleenex". Everybody knows what you are talking about when you do. Can't you find something more significant to criticize?