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AMD To Hide MHz Rating From Consumers
pezpunk writes: "Tom's Hardware is reporting here that AMD's next-generation Athlons will be identified by model number rather than Mhz rating. This means that an Athlon will be designated an "Athlon 1600" even though it's only a 1.4Ghz part. The true clock speed of the chip will NOT be shown either on the chip itself or even in the BIOS. Apparently, they're desperate to compete with higher-clocked Pentiums in the minds of consumers -- proof that even the underdog can pull dirty marketing tricks =("
>>We do not buy cars based entirely on how many RPMs they are capable of.
No, but horsepowers do influence our decision. Much less, though, because the cars are not named 'Integra 180hp' and 'M3 340hp', while the CPUs *are* named 'Athlon 1.4GHz', 'P4 1.6GHz'.
So, it's a good marketing decision, to make up model names/numbers for different CPUs. As for hiding the actual clock frequency -- for the people who care to find out, it can't possibly be a big problem to figure it out.
Never underestimate the bandwidth of a 747 filled with CD-ROMs.
got look at some Tbird vs P4 benchmarks and tell me I'm wrong there
Please post a link to these "lies" that you so boldly claim. Even better, some proof that they are lies.
Unlike Intel, they're at least not lying about clock speed.
How is it better to attempt to intentionally mislead people? Cyrix tried this same trickery, and suffered the consequences.
This is no better than Apple's misleading claims that some bogus narrow benchmark or extremely optimized, specific operation (e.g., photoshop filters) is a measure of overall performance.
As evidence of my statements, I direct you to John Carmack's post regarding his performance tests of x86 versus PPC.
There is more to performance than what a lot of people want you to believe. This AMD move is simply about misleading consumers.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Apple is doing this now -they face dwindling market holding because they are oft-seen as the easy-to-use-but lacking power solution. Not so. Truth be told, Apple could blow away any PC proc based on a purely MHz rating too - this from a die-hard PC user - but this is not the forum for that debate...
Apple has taken the high road. They have begun to educate users en-mass about the problems of relying on the MHz rating. Sure we know better: Intel cannot benchmark equal to AMD on a MHz rating because they cannot run the same number of operations per second. Thats simple math.
The analogy I like is who has more light: if everyone 100 light bulbs but all mine are 100 watt and everyone elses are 60 watt, everybody can see that the 100 watt bulbs are going to produce more light, but it still seems like everyone is comparing the number of bulbs - "Its got to be brighter becasue they have more bulbs!"
AMD has gone the opposite way in the analog, like saying we're giving you 60 bulbs but the amount of light will be the same as intel's 100 bulbs. And most people are still stuck saying "ya but you're ripping me off for 40 light bulbs!" AMD needs to take a better look at how the big picture will appear to the public, are they looking for more light, or more bulbs?
"Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati" -- Red Green
Not exactly what you're looking for, and not text, but here's a link to a series of charts I've found very useful. They cover pentium era through late P3, plus Athlons up to the 1GHz Slot A. They show handy stuff like clock speed, bus speed, multiplier, cache size, votages, etc.
Processor and Chipset Tables
Carpe Cerevisi - Seize the Beer
Intel can rename there pIV's as pIV 3200 and the consumer will false think the intel chip is twice as fast as the athlon 1600. Got to love marketing.
Hey, speaking of clever marketing, remember when NT 5 which was due in 1997 got renamed as windows2000? Hehe. It worked. I told my boss that microsoft took ages to make w2k and it was long overdue. He said quote "Its not late. Why do you think Microsoft named it Windows2000 ?". He fell for it.
Also go to your grocery store and look at Campbells Chicken soup. The can with a picture on it is $1.45 and the other can without a picture is $ .99. The 2 soups are identical ingredient by ingredient and quantity, yet the consumer pays more because one can has a nice pretty picture on it.
Sadly consumers are really suckers for things like this. Megahertz ratings included. Same is true for clever wording. Notice how microsoft's products are all verbs? Internet Explorer, Access,excel, etc. Marketing does really work and people subconsiously think of these actions each time they open the apps. Ask any Phsyc. major? Using verbs and positive adjectives does influence people. Anyway consumers just want something that looks visually appealing and is highly marketed. Perhaps AMD could rename the athlon to a verb. Hey Geforce256 is a great example. I admit a geforce is the fastest chip available but I am sure the name helped them greatly market it.
Expect intel to do something similiar like I mentioned above with names for its chips. Intel does have the extra hand in marketing due to brand name recognition. Also without a magehertz rating many consumers who are second time buyers know to look for a megahertz rating when buying computers. They may be nervous and wonder what AMD is hiding when no info is available. They will probably pick intel to be safe. Or pick the chip with the higher number in its name. :-)
http://saveie6.com/