AMD to Hide Processor Speeds

[CaptainRAVE]

What a JOKE or maybe not....

 

Apparently tired of running a race for the fastest clock speed against Intel, AMD has announced that in the future, its Athlon chips will no longer reveal how fast they are.

 

Not only are they going to name the new processors after model numbers instead of clock speeds, but even the BIOS is now specifically forbidden from ever telling how fast the clock speed actually is.

 

PC manufacturers fear that this could lead to lawsuits, if customers feel misled by the model numbers. For instance, an Athlon 1.4 GHz would be called Athlon 1600, because AMD thinks it is as fast as a Pentium 1.6MHz, which is confusing at best.

[StormHammer]

Well, I can see some of their reasoning for this. As far as I'm aware, the 1.4Ghz Athlon (DDR model) keeps pace with the Pentium 2Ghz, not just the 1.6Ghz.

 

Now, a lot of consumers are probably confused by this apparent disparity. In their minds the 2Ghz model must be a lot faster than the 1.4Ghz, in spite of stats to the contrary - so which processor are they likely to buy to get better performance? The one with the higher rating. After all, that's the way we have usually compared chip performance in the past (except perhaps for RISC chips).

 

This is obviously going to hurt Athlon's sales to the uneducated masses - especially when Intel has such strong marketing campaigns.

 

So the only logical thing to do is to take the Ghz rating of the chip out of the equation, and rely instead on actual comparisons of performance with competitor's chips. That may be no bad thing, because I am more inclined to look at actual benchmarks when comparing systems anyway. Those benchmarks may start to become more prominent in the performance calculation stakes.

 

It's a bold move, but whether or not it would be successful is yet to be seen. I think I'll be watching this one with keen interest.

[Guest Krayt Tion]

Anyone with any PC-know can tell you that clock speed cannot be the sole criteria for judging the performance of the AMD and Intel chips.

 

For those of you who are still asking why that is, it's like this:

 

You've got your Instructions Per Clock (IPC) and your Clock Frequency (measured in MHz or GHz). The two are dependent on one another to get the real performance picture, and while Intel chips might have a Clock Frequency soon up to 2GHz, an AMD Athlon T-Bird has more IPCs.

 

Unfortunately, as has been pointed out, the unwashed masses of PC users don't realize that clock speed alone does is not an indicator of better performance between the chips.

 

It appears Intel has indeed made the smarter marketing decision by producing a chip (the P4) whith such excellent scalibility (with ability to increase in more MHz). But since I'm not a Consumer Tool, that means little to me.

 

Interesting move by AMD with the hidden standards although I have not read about this in depth yet much less at all. Got a link?

[TornSoul]

Ever since the K6-2 AMD has had a better price/quality compared to Intel. Unfortunately, the average consumer does what commercials tell them to do and AMD isn't really big with commercials.

Now the AMD Athlon processors are cheaper and (arguably) better than both the P3 and P4. The main reason why more people still buy a P3 or P4 is because of the name the Intel Pentium has (mainly due to an agressive commercial strategy).

[Letalis]

I'm intending to make a purchase soon, consequently I've been looking around, and until recently, I'm sad to admit I've been a 'Consumer Tool'.

 

After checking out AMD chips in comparison to Intel though, it's become remarkably clear which direction I'd like to go in.

 

But is hiding their clock speeds actually going to be an advantage? *confused*

[ed_silvergun]

Hmmm... I'm not convinced about this new numbering system. At first I thought it was a joke. But, with a little reading around, and now I've had time to think about it some more, I suppose it could work.

 

For those that are still a little mystified, here's the <A HREF="http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,5096420,00.html?chkpt=zdnnp1tp01">full story</A> courtesy of <A HREF="http://www.zdnet.com/">ZDNet</A>.

[WD_ToRMeNt]

I understand why they are doing this, but I sure hope they change thier minds or at least provide some way to find out the clock speed.

 

1) I like to know the specs of my system, i dont like things being hidden from me.

 

2) If I don't know the clock speed, how the hell am I supposed to set the jumpers on my mother board.

 

3) On the boards that have jumper less configuration, how the hell is the bios going to be able to set the right peramiters if the clock speed is even hidden from the bios?

 

4) How the hell am I supposed to overclock it?

 

Those are my personal problems with this stupid move.

 

I Think that it's gonna backfire on AMD. Cyrix tried to do the same thing, and where is cyrix? Dead. When the average joe computer guy sees a chip made by intel vs. a chip made by some company that won't tell you the clock speed but just the model number, who is he gonna trust? I worked in retail computer sales, and I'll tell you that the vast majority of sales people don't know enough about how the chips work. AMD shouldn't expect much help from the retail secter either.

[matt--]

I think that the clock speed will be available to the system itself. Maybe just to the bios. It has to know the clock speed. Then it's just a matter of simple math.