Frequency Converter

Hertz, kHz, MHz, GHz and THz for radio stations, audio, monitor refresh rates and CPUs

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✨ Frequency Converter

Hertz, kHz, MHz, GHz and THz for radio stations, audio, monitor refresh rates and CPUs. No data leaves your browser – every conversion happens locally.

Hertz, prefixes and period

One hertz is one cycle per second, and each prefix is a factor of 1,000: kHz, MHz, GHz, THz. Converting between them is just moving the decimal point three places at a time.

Often what you really want is the period, the time one cycle takes. That's 1 divided by the frequency, and it isn't in the converter. Mains power at 50 Hz (India, Europe) has a 20 ms period; at 60 Hz (North America) it's 16.7 ms. The tool also doesn't convert RPM or wavelength.

Frequency reference

1 kHz	1,000 Hz
1 MHz	1,000,000 Hz
1 GHz	1,000,000,000 Hz
Human hearing	20 Hz – 20 kHz
Wi-Fi 2.4 GHz	2,400,000,000 Hz

Worked examples

FM radio

A station at 98.3 MHz is broadcasting at 98,300 kHz. AM stations are listed in kHz because they sit much lower, around 530–1,700 kHz.

Gaming monitor

144 Hz means a new frame every 6.94 ms, compared with 16.7 ms on a standard 60 Hz screen.

Processor clock

3.2 GHz is 3,200 MHz. Spec sheets switch between the two, so converting helps when comparing listings.

Frequency and the period of one cycle

The converter changes prefixes but doesn't give the period, so this table does. Period is 1 ÷ frequency: the higher the frequency, the shorter each cycle.

Frequency	What it is	One cycle lasts
50 Hz	Mains power in India and Europe	20 ms
60 Hz	Mains power in North America; standard monitor	16.67 ms
120 Hz	Fast phone or TV screen	8.33 ms
144 Hz	Gaming monitor	6.94 ms
240 Hz	Esports monitor	4.17 ms
440 Hz	Concert A, the tuning note	2.27 ms
1 kHz	Test tone	1 ms
2.4 GHz	Wi-Fi band	0.42 ns
5 GHz	Wi-Fi band	0.2 ns

RPM and band names

RPM is a frequency too, just per minute instead of per second. Divide by 60 to get hertz: an engine or motor at 3,000 RPM is turning at 50 Hz. The converter doesn't have an RPM option, so do that step first.

Wi-Fi "2.4 GHz" isn't one frequency. It's a band running from 2.400 to 2.4835 GHz, split into channels. So when a router setting shows 2.437 GHz, that's channel 6 inside the same band, not a different kind of Wi-Fi.

Frequently asked questions

A 3 GHz CPU executes 3 billion clock cycles per second. More GHz generally means faster single-threaded performance, but modern CPUs do multiple operations per cycle, so raw GHz isn't the whole story.

2.4 GHz has longer range but slower speeds and more interference. 5 GHz is faster but shorter range. Use 5 GHz when you're close to the router, 2.4 GHz when you're far away.

440 Hz, the standard tuning reference for Western music. The human voice ranges roughly 80–1,100 Hz.

Divide the speed of light (299,792,458 m/s) by the wavelength in metres. A 3 m radio wave is about 99.93 MHz, right in the FM band. Wavelength isn't one of the converter's units, so do that division first.

One cycle per second. A clock ticking once a second runs at 1 Hz, and a 50 Hz mains supply reverses direction 100 times a second, twice per cycle.

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