Gigahertz to Hertz (GHz to Hz)

1 gigahertz equals 1,000,000,000 hertz exactly.

1 gigahertz = 1,000,000,000 hertz

How to convert gigahertz to hertz

To convert gigahertz to hertz, multiply the number of gigahertz by 1,000,000,000. This factor is exact. To go the other way, multiply hertz by 1×10⁻⁹.

hertz = gigahertz × 1,000,000,000

Example: 10 gigahertz = 10,000,000,000 hertz.

About these units

Gigahertz (GHz)

Metric (SI)Current unit

One billion hertz. Modern processor clocks and Wi-Fi run at gigahertz frequencies.

On 6 March 2000, AMD demonstrated a processor passing the 1 GHz mark, a few days before Intel shipped 1 GHz systems, according to Wikipedia. After that, clock rates rose more slowly: Intel's 3 GHz Pentium 4 arrived in 2002, and later performance came more from design changes than raw speed, since higher clock rates produce more heat. The highest boost clock on a production processor is listed as 6.2 GHz for the Intel i9-14900KS in 2024.

A gigahertz is a billion hertz, the range known as microwaves. The most familiar example may be the kitchen: consumer microwave ovens typically run at 2.45 GHz, a band that is available for industrial, scientific and medical use worldwide. Percy Spencer of Raytheon discovered the heating effect in 1945 when a radar set melted a candy bar in his pocket, and Raytheon sold the first commercial oven, the Radarange, in 1947.

1 gigahertz = 1,000,000,000 hertz (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Clock rate; Wikipedia: Microwave oven; Wikipedia: Gigahertz

Hertz (Hz)

Metric (SI)Current unit

The SI unit of frequency: one cycle per second. Named after Heinrich Hertz.

Heinrich Rudolf Hertz (1857 to 1894) was a German physicist who, in experiments between 1886 and 1889, produced and detected radio waves with a spark-gap transmitter and a loop receiver. He showed that they travel at the speed of light and can be polarised, reflected and refracted, confirming Maxwell's theory. Asked about uses for them, he is said to have replied, Nothing, I guess. The International Electrotechnical Commission established the name hertz in 1935, and the CGPM adopted it in 1960, replacing cycles per second.

One hertz is one cycle per second, equal to s to the minus one. A clock ticking once a second runs at 1 Hz, a human heart at rest beats at around 1.2 Hz, and young ears hear roughly 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz. The SI treats cycle itself as not a unit, and the hertz applies only to periodic events, whereas the becquerel counts random radioactive decays, even though both are one per second. The second is now defined by fixing the caesium frequency at exactly 9,192,631,770 hertz.

The hertz is the reference unit for frequency on this site.

Sources: Wikipedia: Hertz; Wikipedia: Heinrich Hertz; BIPM: SI Brochure, 9th edition

Related conversions

See all frequency units.