GHz

GHz may refer to any of the following:

1. Short for gigahertz, GHz is a unit of measurement for AC (alternating current) or EM (electromagnetic) wave frequencies equal to 1,000,000,000 (one billion) Hz (hertz).

2. With a computer processor or CPU, GHz is a clock frequency, also known as a clock rate or clock speed, representing a cycle of time. An oscillator circuit supplies a small amount of electricity to a crystal each second measured in kHz, MHz, or GHz. "Hz" is an abbreviation of Hertz, and "k" represents Kilo (thousand), "M" represents Mega (million), and "G" represents Giga (thousand million).

The first CPUs (computer processors) operated in kHz. For example, the first processor, the Intel 4004, operated at 740 kHz. Later processors operated in MHz; for example, the Intel Pentium processor was available at 60 MHz to 300 MHz. Today's processors operate in the GHz range.

The higher the GHz number for a processor, the faster the processor can run and process data. The first 1 GHz processors for consumer computers were released in March 2000 by AMD and Intel. Today, processors are reaching 3.8 GHz or higher speeds with multiple cores.

What comes after GHz?

When measuring the frequency (speed) of a CPU (central processing unit), there are no processors with speeds past GHz. However, when measuring other frequencies, THz (terahertz) comes after GHz.

What comes before GHz?

When measuring the frequency (speed) of a CPU (central processing unit), MHz (megahertz) comes before GHz.

Clock cycle, Computer abbreviations, CPU, CPU terms, Hertz, kHz, Measurement, MHz