How fast is your processor?

[Thue]

Originally posted by axi
You have done a very bad selection of poll options. You should have split into generations with increasing size.

<200
201-300

Not to mentions give the people with a 200 (300 in his case)MHz computer a place to put there vote.

[Asher]

Originally posted by tinyp3nis
I think you could get 12k easily with your stuff. Couldn't get to orb to see your results, onion is slow again

It's the Athlon that's holding it back (or rather its poor system/memory interface). A similarly equiped P4 would score higher, but this is as high as this baby will go.

I've tried tweaking lots of stuff. Even overclocking the video card yields minimal performance, it's CPU-bound on my system.

[Paul Hanson]

I'm currently posting from a PC with the raw processing power that can only be provided by:

Pentium P166 (with MMX)
80mb RAM
13.6Gb hard disk space
S3 Trio64 2mb
No sound card
4x CD drive

And for the record, it won`t run 3DMark2001.

Feel the power!

[Urban Ranger]

Re: How fast is your processor?

Originally posted by Caesar the Great
i'd like to see how outdated my 5 year old 300 Mhz p2 is

You have completely swallowed the Intel myth hook sink and line.

Processor speeds should not be measured by how fast the clock ticks but MIPS (millions of instructions per second) and MFLOPS (millions of floating point operations per second).

[Asher]

MIPS and MFLOPS aren't much better at all, UR.

They're very easily skewed. MIPS because not all instructions are created equal, and MFLOPS because...well, Apple claims 12GFLOPS for the G4 -- figure that one out yourself.

MIPS stands for, after all, Meaningless Indicator of Processor Speed.

They're generally worse indicators of true performance, truth be told. MHz is certainly not the full story either, but it's better than MIPS and FLOPS.

[Urban Ranger]

Maybe it's the case for you, but not for most other people who has an inkling of what's going on.

Now if you can put up a consistent argument on why MIPS and MFLOPS aren't better, I'm all ears.

[Asher]

For starters, Apple claims 12GFLOPS on the new G4s. That screams total bull**** to me.

Then you can compare the MIPS numbers for the Gekko CPU in the Gamecube (~1100) to the MIPS numbers for the CPU in the Xbox (~2000) -- but developers say the Xbox's CPU is only slightly faster than the Gamecube's CPU, and even then only in certain matrix ops.

MIPS, FLOPS, and MHz are all just as easily distorted. The difference between the three is MHz is what we use to adjust speed of our computers when we want to change it, so that's what's put on the sticker.

[RGBVideo]

700 Mhz, 64 Mt, really crappy video card.

[Ari Rahikkala]

BTW, why does it seem to me that manufacturers always put too little memory into computers? Take a look at Paul Hanson's computer - 80 megabytes on a Pentium at 166MHz means that if any particular program can run at a bearable speed on the processor front, it will also run without swapping too much. That's what "enough memory" means to me. But I've seen ads on newspapers in the class of 128MB for a P4 at nearly 2GHz ! Are we expected to run only one program at a time and love the sound of thrashing hard disks?

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Asher
For starters, Apple claims 12GFLOPS on the new G4s. That screams total bull**** to me.

Since I don't know how they tested it, it might be a biased benchmark. Nevertheless, RISC's are better at MIPS and MFLOPS than CISC's.

Originally posted by Asher
Then you can compare the MIPS numbers for the Gekko CPU in the Gamecube (~1100) to the MIPS numbers for the CPU in the Xbox (~2000) -- but developers say the Xbox's CPU is only slightly faster than the Gamecube's CPU, and even then only in certain matrix ops.

There are all sorts of ways to test for MIPS. Some may show the maximum speed by optimising everything into the cache and run tight loops, but those benchmarks don't mean anything. You need to run a large number of programs to come up with a better picture.

Originally posted by Asher
MIPS, FLOPS, and MHz are all just as easily distorted. The difference between the three is MHz is what we use to adjust speed of our computers when we want to change it, so that's what's put on the sticker.

MHz is only meaningful when you compare the same architecture. You can't use it to compare even P4's with Athlons.

[Rogan Josh]

I could really do with a new graphics card, but I keep waiting for the newest thing to come out. By the time it is affordable it is almost obselete and I am waiting for the next one.

What would you guys recommend for a value for money graphics card? At the moment I have a GeForce 2. (In a 1.5 GHz P3 with 512MB RAM.)

[Urban Ranger]

Nothing wrong with the GeForce2. If you don't need graphics card with gee whiz performances there are lots of choices.

[Robert]

I just blew up my Atholon 800 (it's being repaired right now)

I'm working on my PIII 500 right now.

[connorkimbro]

i have a 950 mhz amd athalon

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by CyberShy
I just blew up my Atholon 800 (it's being repaired right now)

Does that make you a cyber-terrorist?