Bus Types

• In a computer system, data travels between the components via buses. The Dell OptiPlex GX260 has three different bus types: the system bus, the PCI bus, and the AGP bus.
  
  

System Bus

• The computer's system bus is also known as the Front Side Bus, or FSB. The FSB connects the computer's processor to the system's memory modules. The FSB speed determines the speed of the data transferred between the memory and the processor. This speed largely determines the efficiency of the computer itself. The faster the FSB runs, the faster the processor can execute commands. The speed of the FSB can usually be increased or decreased from the system's BIOS settings or with jumpers on the motherboard itself. The OptiPlex GX260 can be equipped with either an Intel Pentium 4 or Celeron processor. The FSB speed for these processors may be 400 or 533 megahertz, depending on the processor model installed.
  
  

PCI Bus

• A Peripheral Component Interconnect, or PCI, bus is the connector between a computer's processor and expansion cards, such as video or audio cards. The OptiPlex GX260 contains a PCI 2.2 bus with a speed of 33 megahertz, the standard speed of PCI buses at the time of production. The small form factor version of the GX260 can support one PCI slot, the small desktop version supports two slots, and the small mini-tower form factor supports up to four PCI slots. The PCI data bus width for this model is 32 bits.
  
  

AGP Bus

• The AGP, or Accelerated Graphics Port, bus connects the video card directly to the system's processor. Because only one device can be connected to the AGP bus, it is usually faster than the PCI bus, which can support multiple devices. The Dell OptiPlex GX260 has an AGP 2.0 bus with a speed of 66 megahertz. Each form factor type for the GX260 supports only one AGP device.