Clock Speed

The clock speed of a chip refers to the frequency of its calculations. Usually, this term is used in reference to the CPU in a computer. The clock speed of a chip can be used to compare the speed of one chip to another, but only if the chips are in the same family. For instance, a 3.2 GHz Pentium 4 is faster than a 2.8 GHz Pentium 4. However, the numbers can't be used to compare chips that are not in the same family. For instance, a 2.1 GHz Athlon XP (which will be sold as an Athlon XP 3000+) will perform at about the same level as a 3GHz Pentium 4 for most tasks.