Gigahertz

A gigahertz is one billion (or 10⁹) hertz, a measure of frequency. Each cycle is one nanosecond.

Radio waves sent at gigahertz frequencies usually travel in line of sight. Gigahertz frequencies or microwaves are also used in cellular telephones, microwave ovens, radar and other uses.

See hertz, kilohertz (10³Hz), megahertz (10⁶Hz), terahertz (10¹²Hz), and petahertz (10¹⁵Hz).

AMD and Intel released their first desktop processors over 1 GHz in 2000 (though in 1999 a heavily overclocked AMD system broke the Gigahertz barrier).

As of 2003, most of the commonly sold microprocessors work with clocks that have frequencies ranging from one to three gigahertz.