Why £ per performance when we mean performance per £

DereksDontRun · 29 Oct 2018 at 15:10

Just a recent pet peeve, but I've been noticing more and more people use the term "pound per performance" when surely they mean "performance per pound"?

price per performance suggests a better score for a higher price or less performance, which is surely the opposite to what's intended...

I appreciate there's the price-performance ratio, which is probably the origin, but that doesn't mean "pound per performance" is a something to praise. It just makes more sense (to me) for it to be the other way around?

Or, is it another Americanism like "could care less" vs "couldn't care less"?

touch · 29 Oct 2018 at 15:28

DereksDontRun said:
price per performance suggests a better score for a higher price or less performance, which is surely the opposite to what's intended...

It's the opposite of what's intended because "pound per performance" is the opposite of "price per performance"

krooton · 29 Oct 2018 at 15:43

Both work.

How many FPS you get per pound spent. Eg. 2 FPS per £1
How many pounds you spend for each FPS. Eg. 50p per 1 FPS

DereksDontRun · 29 Oct 2018 at 17:35

touch said:
"pound per performance" is the opposite of "price per performance"

how so?!? pound = price, so they're the same. e.g. Item A is £5 and does 10jiggers/min, item B is £10 and also does 10jiggers/min

They both have equal performance, but item A is half the price, so has twice the performance/price as B (and also twice the performance/pound). (item A is 10/5 = 2, whereas B is 10/10 = 1). Same would go if they both cost the same, but item A did 20jiggers/min...

But... if "price per performance" is stated, then item A is half the number of B - thus my musing that "price per performance" is technically the opposite scale of what people are meaning, when trying to justify the value of the item. Generally this statement is used when trying to justify the maximum performance for the minimum cost, thus a high performance/price index (but then ironically using the opposite statement, if that makes sense). E.g. buy gpu A as it has a greater performance/price than B.

I know this is pedantry - but, as I said, a pet peeve

Dis86 · 29 Oct 2018 at 17:35

Probably ties in with the phrase "Bang for the Buck".

dowie · 29 Oct 2018 at 18:29

DereksDontRun said:
I appreciate there's the price-performance ratio, which is probably the origin, but that doesn't mean "pound per performance" is a something to praise. It just makes more sense (to me) for it to be the other way around?

Or, is it another Americanism like "could care less" vs "couldn't care less"?

No it isn't like that Americanism, in that instance "could care less" is incorrect.

It is like quoting the exchange rate for GBP and USD as USD/GBP... it is arbitrary - by convention we quote it as GBP/USD but there is no reason why we couldn't quote it the other way around too. Indeed for most of the rest of the world, aside from some commonwealth currencies, the USD does come first when quoting the rate.

likewise there is no reason why someone can't talk about £s per FPS or FPS per £ as per post #3

Destination · 29 Oct 2018 at 18:46

Dis86 said:
Probably ties in with the phrase "Bang for the Buck".

Or 'risk it for a biscuit'

I'd buy that for a dollar!

Rotty · 29 Oct 2018 at 19:05

Never heard either said

Amp34 · 29 Oct 2018 at 19:58

Gallons per mile or miles per gallon.

Which one makes more sense depends on whether your device uses more than one gallon per mile.

Arguably the same here.

Dis86 · 29 Oct 2018 at 19:59

Amp34 said:
Gallons per mile or miles per gallon.

Which one makes more sense depends on whether your device uses more than one gallon per mile.

Arguably the same here.

Logical. Like it.