Tabula Rasa Beta Sign-ups Begin (January 12, 2007)

hurleybird said:
Yeah, bad choice of words on my part. What I meant to say was that when you introduce IPC to people they react like it's some completely new concept, and their entire perception of what makes a fast computer gets turned on it's head. I didn't mean to say that most people won't believe you (although in my experience, there are people like that), but at the moment I couldn't come up with the right words to express exactly what I meant.
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Eh, it's not in the least bit a revolutionary concept. People are quite capable of understanding the idea that, instead of having one really fast processor, you've got two slightly slower ones which, combined, do a better job.

You're going off topic, as we are not talking about someone who is in the process of buying a computer, we are talking about someone who is reading the required specs of a game and seeing if his computer can run that game, but I'll indulge you anyway
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Not in the least bit off topic - it's safe to assume that people don't forget the specs of their computer the day after the purchase. Somebody who has bought a dual-core processor is quite likely to still remember half a year later that his 2GHz processor is faster than an ordinary 3GHz processor.

Your example is somewhat valid, and I'm sure it has happened to some consumers, but the introduction of the model numbers really muddles things up. You don't hear a salesman calling a processor a "2.2GHz Athlon 64 X2"; he calls it the AthlonX2 4200+ or in the case of the C2D he calls it the E6700 (and why wouldn't he? the bigger number sounds better and it saves himself the hassle of explaining IPC in the first place!)
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Wait... let me just be sure I understand you :p. You're saying that salespeople refer to dual-core processors using ratings like 4200 or 6700. Now, if you ask a salesman what those numbers mean, he'll usually explain that it's the actual speed, pretty much equivalent to Hz. So, a person who goes by what the salesperson told him, will understand his 2.2GHz dual-core AMD is 4200+ Hz, and therefore, that it's a 4.2 GHz processor. Yet, you're not sure if this same person will understand that his 2.2GHz dual-core AMD is capable of running a game that requires a 3.6GHz processor?
 
Quarto said:
Eh, it's not in the least bit a revolutionary concept. People are quite capable of understanding the idea that, instead of having one really fast processor, you've got two slightly slower ones which, combined, do a better job.
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Ummm... ah, see, now you're kind of confused. I wasn't referring specifically to dual core, and since most (PC) games are still single threaded dual core is largely irrelevant in the first place. What I *was* referring to was IPC, called Instructions Per Clock cycle, which refers to the average amount of instructions that can be processed for each Hz of your processor. For example, the Pentium 4s (which were built to attain high clock frequencies) have a lower IPC than Athlons and Pentium 3s which in turn have a lower IPC than Core 2s.

Quarto said:
Wait... let me just be sure I understand you :p. You're saying that salespeople refer to dual-core processors using ratings like 4200 or 6700. Now, if you ask a salesman what those numbers mean, he'll usually explain that it's the actual speed, pretty much equivalent to Hz. So, a person who goes by what the salesperson told him, will understand his 2.2GHz dual-core AMD is 4200+ Hz, and therefore, that it's a 4.2 GHz processor. Yet, you're not sure if this same person will understand that his 2.2GHz dual-core AMD is capable of running a game that requires a 3.6GHz processor?
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I think that in *some* way that when a consumer hears "4200+", or "E6xxx" he knows that it's a model rating and not the actual speed of the processor. Especially the Intel numbers which are just an arbitrary number that does not mean "MHz equivalent". I'm sure that -some- consumers do ask what the model numbers mean, but if the salesman just said 'it's roughly equal to Hz" he would be doing a bad job, as AMD's model ratings have long ago lost their grip on reality (so, that consumer would be doing pretty good right now, but would run into trouble in the future when he sees Required: 4200MHz processor and he thinks, hey, I have a 4200+). The danger to the consumer that just accepts the model number without questioning what it means is that at some time he finds out the actual speed of his processor, looks at the system requirements of a game and thinks "My computer can't run this" When in reality it can. It's even worse for laptops, as people expect them to be slower (and for this reason you see more laptops marketed by MHz speed rather than model number) and you're 2.13GHz Core 2 Duo laptop is actually faster in *single threaded* performance than a P4 in excess of 3GHz.
 
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