If computer clocks max out somewhere around 5GHz, how is it possible for 100Gbit internet to exist? How does the computer possibly transfer that much data per second?

Question

If computer clocks max out somewhere around 5GHz, how is it possible for 100Gbit internet to exist? How does the computer possibly transfer that much data per second?

In: 591

Answer 1

The 5 GHz is how many instructions the CPU can process each second (vaguely for ELI5 purposes). The CPU only needs to spend 1 (or a couple) of those 5000000000 instructions telling the RAM or the disk to give that 800 GB file to the network adapter so it can chuck it down the network hole.