Clock Rate vs Bandwidth | a Comparative Analysis

When you decide to have an internet connection and you go to a local Internet Service Provider (ISP), they will tell you about the speed and the bandwidth of the connection and offer you several choices. If you don’t have a proper understanding of the phenomena clock rate, bandwidth, and network speed, and differences between them, you will find difficulty choosing the best configuration for your networks such as a LAN network, etc connected through Wi-Fi routers or ethernet cables. This article will help you understand Clock Rate vs Bandwidth and all the whereabouts.

What is Clock Rate?

The clock rate is the actual speed at which data is transmitted. The clock rate is the entity that determines how fast your command is carried out in a PC environment. When you set the clock rate of a network you actually determine the physical speed of the interface. The clock rate is measured by Hz, MHz, or GHz.

There are actually a few lists of phenomena or factors on which the speed of the CPU and the computer system depends such as RAM, and clock rate is one of them. If you have a PC with a 1.5 GHz clock rate then it means the CPU will perform 1500000000 cycle clocks per second; and then you hear that your friend’s PC has got 1.8 GHz of clock rate, which one will function better in terms of speed? Well, this is obvious; the later CPU has got the opportunity to do more tasks per second.

What is Bandwidth?

Bandwidth is the amount of data or information that flows over a particular interface. Bandwidth is not the speed of a network or any other interface; rather it is the bundles of bits and bytes transmitting through a co-axial cable or optical fiber. The phenomenon ‘bandwidth’ does not relate to ‘speed’ directly although sometimes both are inter-used wrongly by the common users.

Bandwidth is largely discussed when we talk about network or internet connection like MAN or WAN, or LAN. Bandwidth is very crucial in a networking environment as the quality of data distribution depends mainly on it. The larger the bandwidth the better the opportunity for your network to use the best of whatever the speed is available. Bandwidth is expressed as Megabits per second (Mbps). Comparing two different networks, one has a bandwidth of 5Mbps and the other one has 10Mbps, the increase in number in the second one does not necessarily mean that its speed is greater; rather it only means that 10Mbps bandwidth allows a better opportunity for the network to use the speed in comparison with 5Mbps.

Differences Between Clock Rate and Bandwidth

Many common users of modern-day telecommunication systems mix up clock rate, speed, and bandwidth and use these terms interchangeably for practical purposes. After reading this article you won’t be that common one; you will have a better understanding of these two terms Clock Rate vs Bandwidth and will be able to differentiate them.

While clock rate is the actual or physical speed of a network just like your computer speed, bandwidth is simply the amount of data transmitted in that particular network. Remember increasing the speed of your network won’t increase the bandwidth.

For a better understanding of the two, you can think of an open tap from where water is coming at a certain speed. Suppose a bucket is under the tap and after 1 minute the bucket becomes full. Now somehow you just increase the width of the tap and what will happen is the bucket is full in much less time. Think deeply, here the speed of the water flow was not increased at all. You can think of the constant water speed as the clock rate and the increase of the width of the tap as the bandwidth.

Internet Service Provider (ISP) provides the customers internet with a certain clock rate and bandwidth according to the price the customers are willing to pay. You should be careful about the speed and the bandwidth before having a connection. When you Google or browse websites, it is the speed that is required to consider. But when you watch Netflix or YouTube, it is not the speed that you want to be on the higher side; rather it’s the bandwidth that should be good for better performance of the network.

If you are still confused, here’s a comparison chart for your better understanding. 

Clock Rate	Bandwidth
Clock rate is the rate at which the CPU performs tasks.	Bandwidth is the data transfer capacity of a network or computer interface.
Clock rate determines how many operations can be performed per second.	Bandwidth determines how much data can be performed per second.
It’s pre-determined by the chip itself	It’s usually pre-determined by the network administrator
Clock rate can be bottlenecked by other system components.	Bandwidth can be bottlenecked by numerous access points (too many users for example).

Conclusion

Both the clock rate and the bandwidth are crucial in a network environment; they need to be adjusted along the same line for the proper functioning of the network system. The clock rate command sets the speed of the network which is, of course, a primary need of a network connection; on the other hand, if the bandwidth is not set for that particular connection the network will consider the system to be in maximum speed and proper routing won’t occur. Hence be careful about using these two terms: Clock Rate vs Bandwidth. Happy reading!