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Ten Lies About Microprocessors

Posted by timothy on from the lies-they-tell-you-lies dept.

cloudkj writes "Processor selection too often turns into a religious war. Debunking the dominant myths is the first step towards making a rational choice. Embedded.com has an article highlighting the 10 most common lies and misconceptions about microprocessors."

5 of 59 comments (clear)

  1. INTEL Clarification by trompete · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I'm glad that the article author clarified just how important Intel is to the entire processor market.
    Those of us who only use desktop machines have a hard time seeing past Intel/AMD/Motorola. Let's face it: the next processor decision I'm going to make is going to be whether I want to stick with AMD or go to Intel for my next gaming machine.

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    More than enough BS
    1. Re:INTEL Clarification by trompete · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Yes. The point of my post was that most of us never see outside of Motorola/AMD/Intel because we only use desktop machines and don't think about what's running our microwaves.

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      More than enough BS
  2. Great article by Mensa+Babe · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It could be summarized as: "Myth #1: IA32 is good." All in all, a great article. Speaking about myself I might add that for me MMIX is the perfect processor (at least the most perfect designed so far) and I always look at every CPU architecture with the most important factor being how close it is to MMIX in certain aspects. I wonder what is the perfect processor for other people here on Slashdot. I bet for most of you it is Alpha, but I may be wrong.

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    Karma: Positive (probably because of superiour intellect)
  3. Re:GHZ is meaningless? Of course it is by pla · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Yes, actual performance does not matter. That is one of Apple's main marketing messages when marketing machines with sluggish processors in them to try and fool buyers into thinking it does not matter at all.

    Careful, you'll piss off the karma-sucking Apple zealots, a scary and VERY defensive group.

    Anyway, right at the moment, it looks like Apple does actually have the fastest desktop-class machine on the market (at 5x the cost of an Athlon pulling 90% of that performance, of course). However, in typical Apple style, they'll manage a few gens of gradual G5 speed improvements, then fall behind the PC world for another five years. All the while switching from their current "we have faster CPUs" gloat back to the more traditional Apple-apologist line of "well, they ''feel'' faster than PCs and look nicer"

    But no, don't piss off the Apple fans, for they have mod points and always use them to vote down realists (and I say "realists" rather than "PC zealots" because many Windows users would love to run OS-X instead, if doing so didn't result in a machine that costs more, has worse performance (though technically not right at the moment, at least for the high-end Macs), and essentially no real upgrade path beyond "buy a new one").

  4. But This Goes Up To 11 by Uosdwis · · Score: 2, Interesting

    This was an interesting article. I enjoyed the 'There is no one answer' stance the article took. Being a mac user I know all about the holy wars and punishment due. Being a developer in the Aerospace embedded market processor choice is very important.
    This goes to show you what (even educated) people think because of TV/marketing. The CPU is the 'brains' & mark of a computer, Intel chips are the fastest, .. etc. I tell most people that there calculators have more computing power than the Lunar Lander, they scoff. If you tell them there are computers in their car, they ask where the mouse & monitor are. Computers are only used to surf and type. Don't even tell them they have uP in their phones.

    People are just like computers, they can be programmed.