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Intel Plans CPU Naming Change
Jemm writes "According to The Globe and Mail, Intel will start using performance numbers rather than clock speed to number their chips. 'Under the model number system, processors will be given numbers to describe their performance, in addition to being described as running at 2GHz or other speed.'"
Ahhhh, I am sure it will be said again here, but payback is in order. This sort of marketing angle will only go so far though as Apple and AMD have found out. What really matters is real power. This will translate into more sales as Apple is now finding out with significant interest in the G5 Xserve from a large number of corporations and government agencies. So, if Intel can get around some of the performance bottlenecks and deal with the loss of backwards compatibility, they may be able to get back on track.
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You don't believe Intel's FUD but happily believe and spread AMDs FUD? Good job :rolleyes:
Will they finally call the Pentium 4 3.2GHz a Pentium 4 2.4? Their fmul/fdiv operations take twice as long as on the Pentium 3, after all.
If not, they're a bunch of hypocrites.
I suffer from attention surplus disorder.
Yes, but now we'll run into trouble because Intel's Performance Rating will be artificially larger than AMD's - I can't imagine Intel giving any CPU a lower PR than its MHz figure!
It probably is time for a standard, it will need a group to oversee it and make sure the CPU makers post fair speed ratings. Maybe we should let ICANN handle it since they're doing such a great job with domain names :)
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Great, then we'd get what we have on the graphics card market; two giants spending significant amounts of time to make 3DMark run faster.
There are complexities and tradeoffs.... ah, forget it.
Belief is the currency of delusion.
Intel has long coasted along on what Apple likes to call the "megahertz myth." The power of a processor is more than just its clockspeed, as Apple and AMD have struggled to point out for years. Intel ignored the debate because they were ahead in clockspeed, so it was a convenient metric that always showed them to seem ahead of the competition. This change in CPU naming might indicate a recognition that its rivals may overtake it in clockspeed. Perhaps they're planning strategic changes that could take them below Apple or AMD in clockspeed and want to jump on the "clockspeed ain't everything" bandwagon as soon as they can.
It would be nice to have a descriptive measure of performance written in the name. What this new naming convention will lead to, however is statements along this lines of:
"You wasted all that money on an Athlon64 3400? I got a Pentium 5 Series 17Quadrillion Hyperfubar with a squigabyte of intellicache."
"Bah, the Apple G5 can't match a Celeron G7 - the G7 must be a newer series of the same chip."
Yeah, but then they'd hand the actual job off to Verisign, who'd claim that they owned all unused clock cycles.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
It is either a 90 or a 100MHz part, don't know which.
The practice of inventing a silly(TM) performance index that looks better on your chips than your competitor's, or can't be used without a license, is pretty old.
Everybody's a libertarian 'till their neighbour's becomes a crack house.
I hope they name them Extreme something. Cause everyone knows that things are better when they are EXTREME!
"This processor is made for the extreme priority the good looks. The sharp socket which electrifies well is contained generously within..."
"It doesn't matter."
I realize it sounds trite but these days, it's true. They can buy pretty much any new computer they can find and it's perfectly capable of doing what they want to do because, in truth, what they want to do rarely requires a state of the art machine. To simplify things further is the fact that comptuers are getting cheaper and you are getting way more for your money. Buying a new computer isn't the financial hardship it once was.
My mother doesn't care what kind of CPU is in her computer or how fast it is. She just wants to send email to her grandkids and play bridge and she can do that quite happily on a computer she can pick up at Wal*Mart for a few hundred bucks. Power to the people, indeed.
Older intel CPUs used a performance metric named iCOMP which was stamped on many CPUs. A bit of googling suggests this is still around. Perhaps this is another case of reinventing an old idea?
This seems to bear out the rumours that "the next big thing" from Intel on the desktop will be based on the Pentium M which is a chip which ably demonstrates that more Megahurtz isn't necessarily better.
I guess Intel is starting this change in numbering early so it doesn't debut a new chip and a new way of labelling the speed of the chip at the same time. Launching both at the same time might look suspicious to less informed buyers, especially if Intel goes from selling 4Ghz chips to 2.4Ghz chips with a PR of 4500+. By starting early hopefully people will be more accustomed to the new numbering scheme and less likely to think they are being conned. A friend recently told me he had bought a new 3Ghz Athlon XP, he was ready to take it back to the shop after I explained what the 3000 meant!
I wonder how compatible this will be with AMD's PR ratings? What would the equivalent to an Athlon 64 with a PR of 3400 be? I hope Intel doesn't invent a PR system that deliberately uses bigger PR numbers than AMDs. I can see confusion amongst consumers who will think an Athlon 64 4000+ is not a match for a "Pentium 5 6000" even if they are equivalent performers.
While Megahurtz has long been a poor way of determining the speed of a chip, I think having two different PR systems that aren't compatible could be worse.
How is that any worse than it already is? You already need benchmarks to see which processor is best for your application. It's not like naming processors after how many GHz they run at is any better.
It's important that numbers be sane, but when a ~2gig AMD chip can run with Intel chips clocked at a much higher speed, something needs to be done to let the public know in a non-technical fashion.
I don't think anyone can blame AMD for the switch and I think perhaps a standard benchmark/rating system might be in order.
Probably not realistic, but it would be nice.
Cheers
~Dalcius
Rome wasn't burnt in a day.
If something gets X on a processor at 500mhz, you can with confidence say it will get nearly 2*X with the same kind of processor at 1000mhz.
This is true if your benchmark (or something) is able to effectively isolate the CPU. Otherwise, you have to start worrying about bus latency, page faults, and the speed of everything else in your computer.
There's also a myth that CPU performance equates to the performance of an entire computer. This one has folks going out and buying all-new computers when what they really needed to do was buy more RAM or uninstall RealPlayer, Gator, that weather program, etc.
This myth is definitely supported by Intel, which likes to run ads that imply that buying a Pentium MCCXVI processor will help you get better audio and video streams on that computer that's still dialing into AOL with a 28.8 modem.
Not Duron, but older Athlon Thunderbird. And it does not mean "3.2 times faster than Duron", it means it is fast as 3200MHz TBird would be.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PR_rating
i'll agree with everyone here about mhz not really meaning a whole lot by itself..
whenever i had to consult people about their pc purchases, i found the best way that they understood was basically the 3 parts of the cpu.. mhz, bus speed, and cache memory..
your cpu is a vehicle.. the mhz is the speed the vehicle can carry stuff from one place to another (this is what you are buying this ehicle to do - moving stuff) the bus speed is how fast you can load your stuff onto your vehicle.. and the cache memory is the amount of stuff the vehicle can carry...
then i go to explain how whats the point in having vehicle A that can go 1.5 times faster than vehicle B, but vehicle B can carry twice as much stuff each trip.. in the end Vehicle B is the one that gets more done.. until you get into things like it doesnt matter how fast vehicle A can go, if vehicle B can be loaded and on its way and back in the same time that A is still being loaded (bus speed)
its probly not the most refined explaination, but its the way i've talked many people into getting athelons instead of celerons, and in the end getting a better computer (dunno about the states but up here i can get an XP2200 for about the same price as a celeron 2ghz -give or take $5- and we're talking HUGE difference in performance)
CPU rollout roadmap:
Q3 2004: Pentium Fast
Q2 2005: Pentium Really Fast
Q4 2005: Pentium Reeeeeeeaaally Fast
Q2 2006: Pentium Flies
Q4 2006: Pentium 0wnz