Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD)

[sgolds]

upc, I'm afraid it is not I who does not 'get it'. There is a history of rating systems that imitate clock rate. AMD and Cyrix tried this once before, but without the precautions that AMD put in (public benchmarks to verify rating). Cyrix started playing fast and loose with the numbers when their manufacturing couldn't keep up with the market.

Killed Cyrix and almost killed AMD who got tarred with the whole phone PR reputation (even though AMD's numbers were honest).

What is different this time? AMD published a benchmark suite that anyone could reproduce to verify their rating claim. Worked very well for AthlonXP, Athlon64, etc.

Now you claim they want to use a single number with different meanings in different markets. You expect a user to distinguish - to compare Semprons against Celeron D clock rates, to compare A64 against Prescotts.

You are dreaming.

You have no clue as to the lack of knowlege in typical computer users - who, after all, have their own lives to live and can't spend so much time learning the ins and outs of the computer world.

This is exactly what will happen:

Why is this Sempron so much cheaper than this A64 with the same rating?

The ratings don't mean the same thing, Sempron is for office work and A64 is for graphics and games.

But my kid wants to run games, so I need both. What about this Celeron machine?

The number is the clock rate, exactly.

I think I'll take the Celeron. At least I know what I'm getting!

upc, if you think it will work any differently than this, you are sadly mistaken.