FSB n 1: the internal counterintelligence agency of the Russian Federation and successor to the Soviet KGB; formerly led by Vladimir Putin [syn: {Federal Security Bureau}, {FSB}, {Federal Security Service}] 2: a federally chartered savings bank [syn: {federal savings bank}, {FSB}]
front side bus FSB <hardware> (FSB) The {bus} via which a {processor} communicates with its {RAM} and {chipset}; one half of the {Dual Independent Bus}, the other half being the {backside bus}. The {L2 cache} is usually on the FSB, unless it is on the same chip as the processor [example?]. In {PCI} systems, the PCI bus runs at half the FSB speed. {Intel}'s {Pentium 60} processor used a bus speed and processor speed of 60 {MHz}. All later processors have used multipliers to increase the internal {clock} speed while maintaining the same external clock speed, e.g. the {Pentium 90} used a 1.5x multiplier. Modern {Socket 370} {motherboards} support multipliers from 4.5x to 8.0x, and FSB speeds from 50 MHz to a proposed 83 MHz standard. These higher speeds may cause problems with some PCI hardware. Altering the FSB speed and the multiplier ratio are the two main ways of {overclocking} processors. Toms Hardware - The Bus Speed Guide (http://tomshardware.com/busspeed.html). Toms Hardware - The Overclocking Guide (http://tomshardware.com/overclock.html). (2002-02-21)