Inside the Machine

Front-Side Bus

A bus is an electrical conduit that connects two components in a computer system, allowing them to communicate and share data and/or code. If a computer system is like a large office building, then buses are like the phone lines that keep all the employees connected to each other and to the outside world.

The front-side bus (FSB) is the bus that connects the computer’s CPU to the core logic chipset. If buses are the phone lines of a computer system, then the core logic chipset is the operator and switchboard. The core logic chipset, or chipset for short, opens and closes bus connections between components and routes data around the system. Figure 10-2 shows a simple computer system consisting of a CPU, RAM, a video card, a hard drive, ...