12 MHz or 72 MHz

Excuse me if this information is somewhere I couldn’t find.

I noticed FEZ Domino has a 12 MHz crystal.

Does that mean the Domino is going at 1/6th of the 72 MHz processor speed it is capable of?

No, Domino runs at 72 MHz. The crystal is used to keep track of time by providing a very precise frequency.

As a general piece of info…processors NEVER use high frequency crystals like 72Mhz. Instead, they use lower clock frequency crystals, like 12Mhz, and then they multiply it internally, by 6 for example to get the final clock in which the processor internally use.

12 x 6 = 72 :wink:

I was aware of clock multipliers and I tried in vain to find it documented.

I even looked on the forum to see if anyone else stepped up to ask the stupid question.

So I did. :wink:

Thanks for the confirmation.

No question is stupid :wink: I think no one asked the question because the clock frequency is transparent to your application. This is what is nice about NETMF, you do not have to worry about anything!

Hey, pursuant to this; Do you all think Fez can be overclocked! What if i swapped out the crystal for something higher?

It draws more current , getting warmer and if the freqency is too high it’s like a normal processor.
It burns away :smiley:

For what do you want to overclock?

If you need more power then you can use ChipworkX B)

Why over clock? You maybe able to go to 100 Mhz but with losing reliability is getting 50% more processing worth it? Maybe for fun but you should never use it at a higher frequency

Wow 50% reliability at 100mhz. Ah well just a thought.