How important is the bus?

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foley
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How important is the bus?

Post by foley » Wed Dec 15, 2004 11:00 am

So I know this has probably been covered, but the search engine returns some ungodly amount of responses for "bus" so I thought I'd ask. When buying a new computer, how important is the bus speed. The laptops never seem to get above 200mhz, whereas the desktops seem to start at like 600 mhz. Is this the holy grail of computer speed, or simply a novelty item?

In other words, how important is the bus?

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dubphaser
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Re: How important is the bus?

Post by dubphaser » Wed Dec 15, 2004 11:24 am

Foley,

Basically, the bus speed dictates how fast devices in a computer communicate with each other. As with anything computery, faster is better.

Below are some good explanations of what a bus is/does.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_bus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Front_side_bus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back_side_bus

2slim
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Re: How important is the bus?

Post by 2slim » Fri Dec 17, 2004 1:48 pm

Get the fastest FSB motherboard you can buy. 400 mhz works ok with 8 tracks. Nothing less than 533 mhz for anything over 8 tracks and up to 24 tracks. 800 mhz is nice. I'm talkin' PC's here. Not sure about Mac's. Don't cut corners on FSB. Just my experience and opinion.

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andyg666
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Re: How important is the bus?

Post by andyg666 » Fri Dec 17, 2004 2:02 pm

the bus is really important if you want to get from 18th street to vanderbilt ave and the bus doesn't come, it totally sucks because you have to walk.

yeah, bus speed in your computer is important too. but really only up to a certain point unless you're doing massive calculations. if you're trying to record 24 tracks simultaneously or mix a huge-ass session with tons of plug-ins and automation, the faster the better. but any modern computer (2 years old or less) will do just fine for most needs.

2slim, i think you're confusing CPU speed with bus speed. the CPU speed = bus speed times CPU multiplier. for instance, a 500 mhz pentium III computer has a bus speed of 100 mhz and a multiplier of 5, or a cpu speed of 500. a 833 mhz pentium has a bus speed of 166 and a multiplier of 5, etc.

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