Talk:Megahertz myth

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The real myth is this article -- GHz is the primary performance guide even with duo cores since the processors on large multiprocesser computers can only be managed well at a 2:1 ratio. So it takes a quad core to equal the processing speed of two individual computers. And you still might not see much performance boost as software is mostly written to perfom serially. One educator comparing his old single core to his new dual core running at the same rate said it seemed the same, only graphics ran faster. Agreed, certian processor details like processor cycles to complete key instructions have significant performance impact but lacking a table of those, the GHz rate is the only way to buy new computers. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.139.220.8 (talk) 11:05, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Kirk Fraser —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.139.220.8 (talk) 11:06, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Really? All the benchmark reports and technical papers discussing large multiprocessor computers have roughly 65 to 80 percent performance improvements for every additional processor. Additionally, just becuase the software is badly designed or not optimised for multicore processors does not mean that multicore processors (or any processor exploiting other methods to achieve high performance) are bad and that GHz is the only factor in performance. Rilak (talk) 06:50, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

How about creating a table that states the number of processor cycles that is required to execute a processor insturction?

Yuhong Bao

Too many variables, just google for some system shootouts. Izzat source enough, or do you want me to dig about in my old mags from 1997? ...dave souza 17:11, 20 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

AMD CPU numbers

It says, "AMD introducing model numbers giving a notional clock speed based on comparative performance to overcome a perceived deficiency in their actual clock speed." yet I have never seen anything official regarding to this. I think this too is a myth created by AMD fanboys, as the only reliable information about this notion that I have heard is that the numbers were created specifically for marketing purposes only and nothing to do with the actual performance of the AthlonXP. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.74.48.25 (talk) 18:47, 27 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, another problem is that my understanding is that Intel actually did research that showed that a longer pipeline and higher clock speed was the way to go. As it wasn't a marketing ploy to get people to buy processors just because of the higher clock speed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.74.48.25 (talk) 18:56, 27 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It always depends on what benchmarks you use, but in most benchmarks I have seen, the Athlon XP 2000+ actually outperformed the Pentium 4 with 2 GHz. Yes, high clockrates and long pipelinses were the way to go for Intelk at the time they intruduced the Netburst-architechture and I am sure they did some research before they made this decision, but not because of real performance, but because of marketing. Marketing research is also a kind of research. --MrBurns (talk) 20:01, 6 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

POV

Although the article is fairly well written, there does seem to be a slight amount of bias for the PowerPC processors. Perhaps someone could reword it to remove the bias while still maintaining the factuality? Paul Cyr 18:34, 24 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Exactly! This is written by an old-school Apple Apologist. 73.170.79.95 (talk) 13:37, 7 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Further detailed factuality added to achieve NPOV. Note that the points made are taken from the linked articles, and the "megahertz myth" keynote can be viewed as a 17.1 Mb movie download from the linked source. ...dave souza 00:47, 26 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Cleanup

The section of the history of the myth is far too cluttered. I think the main problem with it is that it gives a blow by blow account of the usage of the term, when it should simply say how the myth started. (comment by Paul Cyr)

Point noted, in my opinion the background is important to understanding the myth, but I'll look at tidying up this section. ....dave souza 19:57, 26 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

title

Why is this article "Hertz myth"? Typing that into google yields "megahertz myth" more often then "Hertz myth". Even "gigahertz myth" is more common.

Because it is not a proper title. Paul Cyr 05:09, 22 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What is improper about it? It is a marketing term, not a technical one, so the usual metric rules don't apply. ("Gigahertz myth" is identical to "Megahertz myth", not 1000 times worse.) Algr 05:19, 22 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I do understand what you are saying, and although you are right about it being marketing term, the myth is about hertz in general, megahertz is too specific. In addition to what you said, now that CPUs are in the GHz range, who's to say it shouldn't be changed to Gigahertz Myth? What about when we reach terahertz? The title shouldn't matter based on the current clock speeds. Paul Cyr 07:10, 22 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

-Well, it's like putting Marilyn Monroe's stuff under "Norma Jean". The latter is her real name, but Marilyn/Megahertz is what it says in the movies that everyone remembers.

-Also, no CPU chip was ever measured in just Hertz, they started in the Kilohertz range.

-There is no longer any company that benefits from this myth, so we likely won't hear much more about it.

-Finally, only a few articles ever updated it to gigahertz myth, and they usually mentioned that they did it. The fact that some people did reflexively change it to Gigahertz myth indicates that the public understands that things that apply to Mega automatically apply to Giga too. But if you mention "Hertz myth" out of context, people probably won't recognize it, because they remember "megahertz myth". Algr 14:45, 22 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I conceed :P Paul Cyr 21:55, 22 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It seems a fair point that this may be the only place it's called the "Hertz Myth", and unless a citation can be found supporting that naming it would be better to move this page back to "megahertz myth" after proper discussion. If there are any objections the procedure at Wikipedia:Requested moves should be followed...dave souza, talk 15:56, 22 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed "Irony" Section

To counter the PowerPC bias, perhaps a section or statement should be added regarding apple's change to using Intel processors in place of the PowerPC. 69.68.125.6 (talk) 05:25, 27 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's already there: Megahertz myth#The myth becomes counterproductive. .. dave souza, talk 11:52, 27 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Not any more. The entire section "The myth becomes counterproductive" was deleted in a "removed unreferenced material" edit ([1]). Is there anything that should be restored? --DavidCary (talk) 17:38, 15 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Performance measurement

It is so lame to have an article like this with no references to actual ways of measuring performance. -69.87.204.26 (talk) 01:06, 4 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed. The first paragraph now links to benchmark and computer performance, which in turn link to notable ways of measuring performance. --DavidCary (talk) 17:38, 15 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Removed a dead link

I removed a dead link to a page at jmusheneaux dot com. It wasn't available on the Internet Archive, and the description wasn't clear what it was. Ken (talk) 03:24, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

About the accuracy of the comparison between the 6502 and 8088

It is stated that a 8088 needs 25 cycles to load the accumulator with an immediate value. I am not sure if this is correct. Looking at datasheets and instruction set lists I'd say a 8088 normally needs 4 cycles to fetch and decode a mov reg8/16, nn instruction, after which either 4 or 8 extra cycles are needed to get the byte or word from memory. This is of course a best case scenario, but even with additional wait states, it should be way below the 25 cycles described in the article. Since the accumulator of the 6502 is 8 bits wide, one should load the 8088 with an 8 bit value as well. In the end, the 6502 is still much faster clock for clock, but not as dramatically as described. At least, that is what I think. Perhaps I overlooked something?

sources: http://www.ousob.com/ng/asm/ng11587.php http://zsmith.co/intel_m.html#mov http://datasheets.chipdb.org/Intel/x86/808x/datashts/8088/231456-006.pdf

GB80CPU (talk) 22:58, 26 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]