[SOLVED] What does a higher clock signal frequency actually mean?

What does a higher clock signal frequency actually mean?

I've got an Arduino with an ATmega328 processor. It can be operated at 3.3V which nets a clock signal frequency of about 12 MHz respectively 16 Mhz at 5V.

I connected an IMU to the Arduino which runs an AHRS algorithm turning accelerometer, gyroscope and magnetometer data into orientation data.

What does the higher frequency of 16 MHz actually mean in this context?

Will the AHRS be calculated faster so I get a lower latency? Can I poll the sensors more often? I want a deeper understanding of what I'm doing here.

Solution

Higher frequency means more clock cycles per second which means more operations are done during the same duration of time. This means AHRS runs faster and you will achieve a lower latency and if you are repeatedly reading values from the IMU, you will be able to poll more often.