I'm confused

[Sniper82]

Ok I ain't read much on AMD newest CPU's(xxxx+XP). Anyway I thought a 1600+,1700+,1800+ and so where 1.6GHz,1.7GHz and 1.8Ghz? I just thought that because of the name. Well I got to looking at a officedepot paper today and saw a 1700+ XP and it listed it as 1.4xGhz and a 2000+XP as 1.6xGHz. Is this true? If so why on earth did AMD name their CPU's such higher numbers like the 2000+XP is really a 1.6xGHz. Why didnt they name it 1600+XP?

I'm confused so someone straighten this out.

 

[Narse]

Boy you are behind the times it called the quantispeed rating sorta like the old PR ratings, they used them because the 1800+ performs on par if not better than the P4 1800, and from personal experiance they perform much better than the ratings, go look up some benchies

 

[Furor]

It's not too tough to understand..basically, AMD did it for money..when someone that doesn't know much about computers and they have the option of buying a 2Ghz P4 or a 1.4Ghz thunderbird, they'll go towards the 2ghz..since it's much higher. Now, AMD has a better chance of getting consumers like that to buy AMD with the PR Rating, because..higher is better,, and if they didn't, it would be the same thing forever, intel with higher speed cpu's.... Northwood 2.2ghz, or Athlon XP 1.67ghz? Even though the Athlon is very close to the performance of the northwood, the 'newbies' would pick the northwood..now that it's the 2000+, some people will think opposite.

 

[Sniper82]

CPU's are not something I keep up to date with. I have always known the AMD Athlons where just as fast if not faster than P4's. I just always thought that since they called them 1600+XP it was really 1600MHz, 1700+XP was 1700MHz and so on . Guess not though .

I know now though LOL.

 

[Mavrick007]

The 1600+ is 1.4Ghz, 1700+ is 1.47Ghz, 1800+ is 1.53Ghz, 1900+ is 1.6Ghz, and the 2000+ is 1.67Ghz.
I still think it's a stupid rating system and it's only used to help sell to newbies. They did this with the K5 in the past and are trying it again with the XP, it didn't work then.

I still call my cpu a 1.53Ghz cause I compare my machine to Athlons. It will beat out a P4 2Ghz cause I like to think I have it optimized hehe, but it's just cause AMD and Intel aren't the same. Don't compare apples to oranges.

 

[MrGrim]

IMHO it's a con.

 

[mee987]

I hate to be disagreeable, but I have no choice on this topic. AMD had to use the rating system or they would never sell any processors. The new Athlon XP's beat the hell out of the older but similarly clocked athlons -- even when comparing athlon xp's to old athlons you are comparing apples to oranges. This is a situation where you can no longer compare the speed of CPU's by their clock speed.

If you want to see what I mean, compare the XP 1900+ (@1.6GHz) to the P4 1.6GHz. According to the benchmarks, Intel is making one crappy processor. (no, im not one of those anti-intel maniacs... I have a p4 system and an athlon system, and they are both great)

The problem is that not everyone is able to see in-depth Anandtech reviews and benchmarks of every product they would ever even think about buying.