Are High-End CPUs Worth The Money?

Rampaging Goatbert (aka Jeff Feld) has posted a story at Newsforge about something you may want to argue about with your boss or significant other. Specifically, whether high-end CPUs are worth their high prices. Personally, I look even lower on the processor food chain, but watching those price-curve inflection points makes the runner-up chips pretty tempting. Your mileage will almost certainly vary.

Comments

google

[fjordboy]

I think that google's massive (over 10000 units) server farm (all x86) proves that the high end cpu's aren't worth it. Multiple low end CPU's do the same (if not better) job of one high end CPU. I think Google proves this point.

Re:google

[JWhitlock]

I think that google's massive (over 10000 units) server farm (all x86) proves that the high end cpu's aren't worth it. Multiple low end CPU's do the same (if not better) job of one high end CPU. I think Google proves this point.

How many fps does Google get?

The article is in the context of buying a PC for personal use, and benchmarks using FPS, ray-tracing, kernel-compiles, etc. The idea is to pay attention to incremental performance (1.33 Mhz to 1.4 Mhz, .07 Mhz) versus incremental cost ($33? $100), and make sure it's worth it. Bottom line, buy cutting edge, get screwed on price.

Well Duh!

[gmhowell]

What hard hitting journalism. An amazing display of analytical prowess. I've had better stories rejected.

Of course the top of the line stuff is too expensive. What the hell is there even to discuss with this article?

(At home, I have a Celeron 466 or so on my Linux box. a PIII 600 or so on my 'doze box for games. Big frickin' deal, right? For the price of a processor upgrade, I can be running 1GB of ram in both systems. Through in another 100 bucks, and I've got more disk space than on the file server here at work (which is no slouch for what we do)).

Guess what? Processors don't really matter anymore. Neither does any of that hardware. What in the hell is anybody doing with computers that requires all of this horsepower? Yeah, something will come out. But what, and from whom? Don't we have enough cycles to have incredible voice interfaces? No, because everybody (and by that, I mean Joe Six Pack, aka, my mom) needs M$ bloatware to do anything. It's because Quicken wants to do so much that it takes many megs of RAM to load. Why???

Slashdot latest headline:

Top of the line stuff gives marginal improvements for mega price increase.

Christ, we knew that back when it was a 486-20 mHz vs a 486-25 mHz (and probably earlier). Christ on a crutch, how is this news?

I think I know how stories are picked: each one is printed out. One of the editors grabs a stack and wipes. Whatever story isn't covered in it gets posted.

Excuse me, I must go beat my head against the wall.

(And please, anybody who wants to mod this down, I would much prefer it if you answer my question: why the fuck does this matter?)

Re:Just Computer Hardware

[YIAAL]

This is what happens when you have a capitalist government. A capitalist government? We've never seen one of those, that's for sure. This is what happens when you have a (more-or-less) capitalist economic system. Poor people get a lot for a bargain. Rich people pay a premium to feel special. The premium that the rich people pay help companies charge less for the lower-line products that poor people buy. Everybody's happy. Rich people aren't forced to contribute (except by their egos) and no political bureaucracy dissipates the money being redistributed because it makes economic sense for companies to act this way. Hurray for capitalism! Thanks for pointing this out!

A little perspective

[Courageous]

I cost my employer a little more than 4 cents
a second to employ. So, if a CPU costs 40
dollars more, a mere 17 minutes saving to my
time pays for the difference.

C//