Megahertz to Gigahertz (MHz to GHz)

1 megahertz equals 0.001 gigahertz exactly.

How to convert megahertz to gigahertz

To convert megahertz to gigahertz, multiply the number of megahertz by 0.001. This factor is exact. To go the other way, multiply gigahertz by 1,000.

gigahertz = megahertz × 0.001

Example: 10 megahertz = 0.01 gigahertz.

About these units

Megahertz (MHz)

Metric (SI)Current unit

One million hertz. FM radio and older processors.

Engineers once said megacycles, and the older unit shows up in postwar papers, one 1946 study on ultrasound in liquids being titled with 15 megacycles. When hertz replaced cycles per second, the megacycle per second, Mc/s, became the megahertz. The word then entered home computing: Wikipedia notes personal computer clock speeds of around 1 MHz in the late 1970s on machines from Atari, Commodore and Apple.

A megahertz is one million hertz, the natural scale of broadcast radio. FM stations in most of the world use 87.5 to 108 MHz, with the Americas using 88 to 108 MHz and Japan using 76 to 95 MHz. In North America channels are spaced 200 kHz apart, and the FCC reassigned FM to its present band in 1945. As a way to rate computers, clock speed is criticised by many experts, who call it an easily manipulable benchmark because some chips need several cycles per operation and others perform several operations in one.

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

Sources: Wikipedia: Megahertz; Wikipedia: FM broadcast band

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

Related conversions

See all frequency units.