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Ten Lies About Microprocessors
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."
10. Tin foil helmets will protect us from rays and mind-control particles from microprocessors.
9. Intel from Mars, PPC from Venus
8. No, Porky Pig did not give the PPC its name when he tried to say "PC".
7. Celeron was not named after Celery
6. Go ahead, you can buy a Pentium 3 without worrying that the Blue Man Group will knock on your door and bore you to tears with their post-modern Bolian-hued Mummenschanz antics.
5. "It's a chip, does this mean I can eat it if I dip it in bean dip?"
4. "I paid $2,000 for this screamer back in 1987. It will blow the socks off anything you will put up against it"
3. "Mine's bigger than yours"
2. "Intel Inside"? Consider that label to be a warning.
1. "Get me a microscope. I'm going to open up my PC and look at my micro-processor.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
1. I don't want the latest processor
2. I am perfectly happy with the one I have.
3. Having a faster CPU would make me more productive.
4. I bought the cheapest one because I want to support the underdog.
5. Noisy CPU fans don't really bother me.
6. If I get the most expensive one, I won't have to upgrade for a long time.
7. My life is so much better now that I have CPU x.
8. I don't envy you your brand new CPU, because mine has a years long proven track record.
9. Nobody will ever need a 64bit CPU for home use.
10. I only read newsgroups for the articles.
-- The morphemes of your disquisition are ascertainable, but they have eschewed an ambit of transpicuous exposition.
#3: Instruction sets don't matter
I would say:
#3. The clock speed is a good estimate for processor performance
They implied it here, but even in this world today, there are competent people that think clock speed actually matters when comparing one processor over another. I had an IT person who controls a pretty big budget actually compare a processor in a 8way Sun server to a 21264 alpha chip using only the magnitude of the clock speed as the only performance benchmark. As most (should) know, clock speed works for ranking processors within a family, but mean very, very little in the real world. It's obvious, but as long as purchasers think this is true bad decisions are being made...
-Sean
Best quote from the article: There aren't many strong brand reputations in the microprocessor business but ARM enjoys one of the best. According to their reputation, ARM's chips are endowed with an almost magical ability to run on bright sunlight or the energy released by rubbing a cat. An ARM processor, two lemons, and some copper wire are all that's needed to build the latest PDA, it seems.
Some of Slashdot's trolls would do well to pay attention to the cynical wit present in that statement. Overall though it's a very well-written, concise, and informative article. I'll be quoting his statement on MIPS next time a cpu discussion comes up.
Take a 486 processor and the latest pentium 4 and then run them for 4 or 5 years. Due to the way that modern processors are manufactured as the die features are much smaller, then there is a high probability that the Pentium 4 has now stopped working:- The 486 is still likely to be going strong.
The problem is this, it is fine having the latest technology fitted in the a piece of equipment. However, if you expect that piece of equipment to be operational for an extended number of years, don't select the most powerful processor avialable. Fit one that is reliable and is likely to still be in production for the foreseable future.
Ahh, some of you would say, surely you can emulate an old microprocessor in the future if you need to. Good premise, but if you are building for an application that is incorporated into a safety device on an aircraft or even a car, you will spend an absolute fortune re-qualifing the replacement software. An if you are only building a a few units for spares, it is one easy way of going bunkrupt.
and this is before I start talking about whether the microprocessor will operate in the temperature, vibration environment and the effects of atmospheric radiation at altitude.
Working outside the PC industry, there is a lot more to consider than you would think....
Plusser