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Are Ghz a benchmark any longer?

cleanbluesky

cleanbluesky

cleanbluesky

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Now that the Pentium are gathering conceptual dust in the minds and hearts of the performance market, what will be the new method of branding chips to suggest that they are more powerful than their less expensive cousins?

What particular feature will soon be pushed at the consumer as the defining measure of a fast chip?
 
soon it will probably be 'how many cores that that cpu have?' as well see quad core and 8 core cpu's in the near future. other than that its just the model in the intel or amd range, whee you assume a 3800 is better than a 3200, same as 6300 and 6600, sorry for a bit of a low tech response but its all i could come up with. =]
 
I think it'll be exactly as it is now. First you'll determine how many cores you want, single core, dual, quad, and so on while drooling over that new 64 core Stupid Edition, then you'll choose the one you can afford based on the clock speed, while drooling over the 64 core stupid edition.
 
I think GHZ is still a relevent indicator but only WITHIN a CPU architecture. When comparing across different architectures, I think we will be forced to compare specific models in relevent catagories by benchmark.
However, I agree that multi - core CPU's are the greatest leap forward in recent years. Especially as I use 3D graphics apps more than games (though I still like good gaming performance).
 
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Gigahertz haven't been a good measure of performance ever in my opinion. As soon as you try to compare two different manufacturers' chips you have to look at a test relevant to what you want to know.

For example:

If you're running a multi-threaded java app where throughput is all-important, should you use:

a) 3.4GHz P4 with hyper-threading
b) dual-core 2.4GHz Opteron
c) 4-cpu SPARCIII @ 750MHz

If you're running a single-threaded C app, should you use:

a) 3.4GHz P4 with hyper-threading
b) dual-core 2.4GHz Opteron
c) 4-cpu SPARCIII @ 750MHz


The answers aren't the same, are they?


The A64 proved that running at a 1GHz deficit to a Netburst P4, they could still compete and usually win. Now Core2 is beating A64 with fewer clock cycles. You must take the cpu's pipeline into account, the cache, the specific abilities for prediction, out-of-order execution, inter-cache communication, integer vs. floating-point, chipset support, etc. etc.

Gigahertz are as relevant to cpu cpeed as revs in an engine.
 
MikeTimbers said:
Gigahertz are as relevant to cpu cpeed as revs in an engine.
Click to expand...


Yeah, seem's that CPU manufacturers have found the ceilings of their architecture, so instead of expanding "upwards", they are looking to move "outwards", i.e. dual, quad, core etc
 
gorebrush said:
Yeah, seem's that CPU manufacturers have found the ceilings of their architecture, so instead of expanding "upwards", they are looking to move "outwards", i.e. dual, quad, core etc
Click to expand...

Happens to all of us... middle age spread.
 
I often wonder... if i go into a pc shop and say 'how fast is that?' what will they say?
If they give me a ghz number, it will be wrong as there are now plenty of cpus running at lower clock speeds and performing better, so people will end up buying a lesser processor because its clock speed is higher.

What about flops?
Floating Point Operations Per Second. Is that a good performance indicator i wonder?
Got to be better than clock speed.

But if someone asks me 'how fast is it?' i really don't know what to say anymore.
 
If somebody asked me how "fast is it".... i would assume their knowledge is inferior and then ask their purpose for it, then state "it is fast enough", or "not fast enough", end off, otherwise you just confuse them with big words :)
 
UKDTweak said:
If somebody asked me how "fast is it".... i would assume their knowledge is inferior and then ask their purpose for it, then state "it is fast enough", or "not fast enough", end off, otherwise you just confuse them with big words :)
Click to expand...
But they may not trust you.
If someone was buying a car, they expect to know the engine size.
Its a measure of performance, even though performance depends on lots of other things, it gives a good idea.
Even the most technically incapable car buyer will ask the engine size and use that to determine performance. But when they try to do that with pcs it doesn't work. Would you buy a car because the salesman said it was better or faster than another one despite the other one having a smaller engine?
Probably not. Some people would, many would not.
 
If you look at the current names of the Core 2 Duo chips then you'll get your answer Mr cleanbluesky ;).

PR ratings have been around for a while and will continue to be used now that the MHz war is officially over (unless your trying to prove how good you are at overclocking). Megahertz or Gigahertz for the newer crowd, has never been an accurate measure of the performance of a CPU. However, it is a lot easier to market a chip based on its Mhz speed and thus sell to the general public.

MikeTimbers said:
Gigahertz are as relevant to cpu cpeed as revs in an engine.
Click to expand...

Depends on the engine design, N/A, Turbo, Supercharged......why are things never simple to compare?
 
Arc said:
If you look at the current names of the Core 2 Duo chips then you'll get your answer Mr cleanbluesky ;).

PR ratings have been around for a while and will continue to be used now that the MHz war is officially over (unless your trying to prove how good you are at overclocking). Megahertz or Gigahertz for the newer crowd, has never been an accurate measure of the performance of a CPU. However, it is a lot easier to market a chip based on its Mhz speed and thus sell to the general public.
Click to expand...
PR ratings, like clock speed, can only be used to compare a cpu of the same design and architecture against another. Is an e 6300 faster than an X2 5000? By how much?
 
I like to think of it as a car engine. Or used to anyway.

I used to think of Intel as an american muscle car, 7litre engine but produces 200bhp and I used to think of AMD as a european car which is 2litre but produces 400bhp etc. Used to is the key phrase there.

"Gigahertz are as relevant to cpu cpeed as revs in an engine."

Thats not true you dont know what car etc. Would be quite important in a race car :).
 
UKTopGun said:
I like to think of it as a car engine. Or used to anyway.

I used to think of Intel as an american muscle car, 7litre engine but produces 200bhp and I used to think of AMD as a european car which is 2litre but produces 400bhp etc. Used to is the key phrase there.

"Gigahertz are as relevant to cpu cpeed as revs in an engine."

Thats not true you dont know what car etc. Would be quite important in a race car :).
Click to expand...

Ah but then you fall into the risk of comparing sports car engines.

The latest F1 engines to 20K RPM's for example...
 
Hertz rating = only between processors of the SAME DESIGN. Eg. AMD 64, XP Intel P2, P3. GHz are a benchmark between the same processors, not different :)

I keep telling friends that more Ghz = doesn't mean better.

But now its more cores = better :o
 
wouldn't the true defination of performance be how many IPC the CPU does and then take into account clock speed, example (don't quote for truth) if an AMD athlon did 3 IPC at 2.0Ghz it would be mathematically equal to a pentium IV that did 2 IPC at 3.0Ghz, so i suppose the ultimate benchmark is how many operations it can perform for each clock cycle :)

Edit: another example, someone with three foot strides has to take two steps to walk six feet, then a person with two foot legs has to take three to walk same distance :p
 
I'd say that, for the enthusiast, Mhz as a true measure of performance became an outdated concept some time ago. However, this has certainly become more pronounced recently due to the leaps forward in both hardware and software design. Multithreaded applications, multiple cores and highly efficient architectures are making Mhz more and more irrelevant as a true measure of performance.

Obviously after years and years of having Mhz as the defining standard of performance, combined with a relatively low level of understanding, it is going to be difficult for Joe Public to adjust. It's going to be difficult for processor companies to shatter the archetype of Mhz = performance, particularly as Intel with Netburst has been shoving it in people's faces over the last few years.

I imagine it will be interesting to hear the pseudo-computer literate in high street computer shops muttering about Core 2 Duo chips; “2.4Ghz, that’s a bit slow isn’t it?”. :p
 
eh :confused:

Ghz were never a benchmark except maybe when Intel were the dominant seller prehaps and all the clones were reverse engineered and so very similar and easy to compare. I guess thats how ghz ever came to mean performance

I agree ghz is about as relevant as revs in your car, it really isnt a guide to anything especially if your still parked in neutral :p


Didnt intel have a fancy rating system at some point that was a total flop (pun not intended)
 
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