Depending on your combination of processor and motherboard, you may also be able to change the actual internal frequency multiplier of the CPU itself, which multiplies the FSB speed to arrive at the actual speed of the CPU in GHz or MHz.

For example: an Athlon XP 3000+ ‘Barton’ processor has a multiplier of 13 and uses a FSB speed of 166Mhz. 166Mhz x 13 equals approximately 2.16Ghz. Change the multiplier to 13.5 and you get (166MHz x 13.5 =) 2.24 Ghz.

Although a small change to the multiplier has a larger proportional effect on your systems speed than increasing the front side bus a considerable amount, the actual performance advantage of increasing the CPU multiplier is not so simple. (more…)

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