The original post: /r/explainlikeimfive by /u/M1TR1XS3N on 2024-05-02 11:27:24.

I understand that a clock rate meassures the speed of a particular component. For ex: the CPU’s clock rate defines how often it can work on an instruction per second (how many clock cycles happen per second). So does the RAM’s clock.

However, there’s also the system clock which is a clock installed on the motherboard itself? I’ve read that modern motherboards have clocks that operate in the 100 to 300 MHz range.

However, all of these clocks are a little confusing to me and I don’t quite understand how do they all work together. Basically, the motherboard clock dictates how often can the components do their job per second, right? It has the same purpose as the CPU/RAM clock.

However, if the motherboard sends pulses in the 100-300 MHz range, how come the CPU’s clock can send pulses in the GHz range (for ex: 4.2GHz)? And so does the RAM (for ex: 6000 MHZ).

I am struggling to piece all these different clocks together and how they make the computer work, could someone please simplify this for me?

Also since we are mentioning clocks, how exactly does an asynchronous RAM behave differently than a synchronous one? I know that the SRAM is synced to the system clock while ARAM is not. So how exactly does ARAM work, then?

Thank you.