Quickpath

QPI killed the FSB

QuickPath (QPI, or QuickPath Interconnect) is similar in concept to the HyperTransport bus that AMD uses, as it’s a bi-directional, high-speed, serial, point-to-point interconnect. Intel uses the QuickPath bus standard to connect internal components of Nehalem, and to connect the CPU itself to the Northbridge and banks of memory.

AMD frequently boasts of the high bandwidth provided by HyperTransport, as the HyperTransport 3.0 standard found in current Socket AM2+ motherboards delivers up to 17.1GB/sec of bandwidth to DDR2 memory and up to 16GB/sec between the CPU and the rest of the system. Intel’s QuickPath offers up to 32GB/sec bandwidth between a Nehalem CPU and its DDR3 memory, and up to 25.6GB/sec of bandwidth between Nehalem and the rest of the system.

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