Processor Speed and Perception

[Rio Rebel]

I know this isn't the place for serious questions , but any non-neffing post welcome:

Admittedly, I haven't used very many AMD based systems since the K6-2. I built my wife a Duron system, but I hardly touch it. that being said, I can't tell any noticable difference between my P3 running at 600, 800, or 877, and her Duron running at 700. I'm running on a P3 450 here at work, and there isn't a really noticable dropoff from my P3 800 at home. My laptop has a P3 600, and it's right in there at the same speed, as far as I can tell.

I'm sure 3d games would emphasize the difference, but I'm a little baffled - is 3d games (and 3d rendering) the only reason we're buying new computers now? I knew this already, but the degree to which it is true nowadays just baffles me. If businesses are really absolutely no better off with a P3 1 ghz over a P2-450, how are computer companies staying in business - and if they ARE selling, how are they convincing us?

If you say "Well, we all know that 2d is just 2d, and 3d is what needs the power" - that just leaves the question bigger than ever: How are we convincing the major purchasers - business - to buy new machines?

 

[xtreme2k]

Seriously there is no need for more than 300MHz + 64MB(or 128MB) if all you run is Word and Excel, which 90% of the business ONLY runs. 300Mhz is more than enough for those kind of applications. It is only when you start going use some high end apps that starts demanding on the CPU and Memory.

It is the Gaming industry thats driving the processor sales. If there were no games, we all will still be using 300-500MHz system and will find no problem with them.

 

[iamwiz82]

Well, hello Rio.

I think an analogy to the speed of cars would work. Cars are advertised to hit 150mph, and yet most dont drive them that fast. A friend of mine bought a celeron 633 when they cam out and OCed it to 1043mhz. I asked him, "what was the point?"

"Status symbol, I have a PC at over 1ghz." was his reply.

Its no longer about how much it can do, its about saying, I have a fast computer.

I notice a speed difference between P2 400 and P3 450, but i never really caught one between P3 533 and P3 866. It seems they are nearly the same for business applications.

My company has been buying Dell Optiplexes for about 1 year now. We have 533's, 667's, 733's, and 866's. This is because Dell keeps phasing out the older CPUs in favor of "flashier" ones. If it was up to us, we would still be buying 533mhz chips.

Now this philosophy goes out the window when you get to RC5 =].

 

[Rio Rebel]

I guess my real question is, "Is the 3d market (gaming + rendering) big enough to drive the computer industry?"

When the industry was still in its infancy, computers were directed to the money tree - business. I think the initial plan was to supplement the business market with home sales. But as we've seen the home market grow and grow, the game has changed.

What is the hope for the future of the personal computer industry?

1) A home market big enough to drive the production?
2) Finding a way to make 3D a business necessity?
or
3) Continuing to deceive businesses into thinking they "really need" the latest technology?

 

[iamwiz82]

it is not really deceiving though. Dell, HP, Sony, etc simply won't sell them anymore. The slowest business PC Dell sells is a 700mhz! That is just insane. This PC also comes with a 4meg intel video card, which is bottom-of-the-barrel.

As for home users, they buy whatever is bigger. Every week I have to convince people not to buy a 1ghz PC for their home office. I personally think that as long as there are consumers, the intel and AMD will be kicking out higher CPU speeds, since people will continue to buy the fastest.

 

[Rio Rebel]

good points, wiz.

I have no problem with the industry phasing out "older" processors, regardless of how adequate they are. So as far as 1st time buyers go, there is no problem - you buy what is available.

The thing that concerns me is that there is no need to upgrade. And I may be wrong in the following assumption, but I would think that periodic business upgrades are VITAL to the computer industry. Ten years ago, it could be reasonably expected that you would get to sell new machines to a particular business about every 3 years or so. But now, if a purchasing agent has any knowledge at all about computers, he knows that the P2-400 machines he bought are quite adequate today.

So if I'm right in my two assumptions - that business upgrades are vital to sales, and that the home/gaming/3d rendering market isn't big enough by itself, then I'm back to the question of how the computer industry will solve the problem.

My guess is that we will "coincidentally" find some software that businesses find absolutely necessary, and that requires the cpu power. Either it will be in some application that demands it, or perhaps just the great bloated beast of Microsoft will demand it (but it's in MS's best interest to make its software MORE widely usable, and helping the computer hardware industry is only an indirect advantage to them)

 

[Demon-Xanth]

I find there is a limit for where there is a noticable difference for a particular application. Taking Win98 in general (no games), 32MB is ok, 64MB is better, 128MB is much better, and 256MB looks like 128MB. A P133 crawls, a P233 gets by, a 300P2 goes nicely and a 1GHz Athlon still goes along nicely (although boots a bit quicker).

Break into a game of Q3 and that 300P2 with 128MB and any damned videocard you had laying around when you built the system and marvel at the lack of framerate at virtually any resolution. Nope, you need a bit more for that application. 1GHz looks like it's helpful now, that Geforce 3 and Kryo II looks like they might be useful. Bumping upto 256MB ram goes without question.

Video editing? 512MB isn't enough some times. Disk thoughput is god. PIO4 just doesn't cut the mustard. Dual GHz P3s look affordable (even if it means Mac and Cheese for the rest of the year).

I have a 350P2 w/ 64MB RAM at work with a Riva128ZX on board video with 4MB. Works great for what I do at work. At home I have an 850 T-bird@ 7.5x133 with 512MB RAM and a 32MB G450 vidcard. Works excellent for what I do at home (even though it is overkill and will be for the next 9 months or so)

 

[iamwiz82]

Yes, you are right. Software does continue to require the extra power. Trying to get Office XP to run on a Pentium 2 would be like trying to pull teeth. Bloatware is what seems to be the new, big thing, pardon the pun.

ICQ 2000 is unbelievably huge, as is Media Player 7. We have software that requires a half of gig of RAM to run, and the previous version of the software required only 64 megs. Talk about a shock, i was flabbergasted.

It is a vicious circle.

 

[Rio Rebel]

I don't think it's just a matter of software becoming more and more demanding. If that were the case, it would simply be a matter of how the hardware industry and the software industry keep up with each other.

But it's more a matter of 3D vs. 2D applications. Yes, we've always had something of a distinction in the way each of uses the machine, so graphics design has always required a more robust computer than the office secretary's. But today, it goes beyond that. The difference between an P3-600 and a chip TWICE that speed is almost IMPERCEPTIBLE to the average business user running average business programs. I'm not just talking about Microsoft Word, but also internet browsing, email, MP3 players - the HUGE bulk of what is done on a computer outside of gaming.

So here we are at the dawn of a new generation of Intel processor - the Pentium IV - and it runs most of what we do SLOWER than a P3 at comparable speeds.

Bottom line - I have seen so little real improvement in the PC over the last 3 to 4 years. I run a computer lab at a little private school in Indianapolis, and it has everything from 486/66 machines up to the P3-450 I use at the main desk. I can see a real difference between the 486 and pentiums (of course), but it goes further. I can see a marked difference between a 486/66 and a pentium 66. I can see a difference between a p100 and a p133. But I can't see any difference between a P3-500 and a p3-800.

I expected the processor wars to make MORE innovation and improvements in the industry. But right now, it looks pretty stagnant as far as real performance increase is concerned.

 

[pamchenko]

<< I have seen so little real improvement in the PC over the last 3 to 4 years >>


a PC isn't only it's processor...as pc's have become more powerful, they can perform more functions. I use my PC to watch bootlegged movies, listen to pirated music, play games, publish web pages, create multi purpose CDs. This would not be possible with the pc i had before.
I think bloatware is a popular phenomenon, but I'm sure we all think that the interfaces we have of today look much nicer than the old ones in the past...winME is much prettier than win95, and don't give me the &quot;i'd rather be fast and efficient&quot; ... cuz DOS is pretty fast too, but is it pretty? no.

 

[iamwiz82]

but do you buy computer parts based on how pretty you want the OS to be? i am on win98se, and i like it better than ME. Plus, the supposedly more advanced winME is so full of bugs that its almost unusable.

I bought a T-bird 900mhz mainly for RC5, as bad as that sounds. It gives, an otherwise, under used chip, some use.

 

[Rio Rebel]

pam,

All of those things you mentioned run no faster on a P3 1ghz machine than a P3 600. That's the problem.

As for nice interfaces, I accept them as a necessary part of marketing computers to the masses. But I prefer 98 to ME any day.

The only reason I don't miss DOS is because the windows 95 (and up) platform is BETTER computing. It does two vitally important things that DOS can't do - it multitasks, and it provides a standard driver platform so that most all of our hardware will work with our software. In DOS, if you're old enough to remember, every program provided its own driver for any peripheral it used. Other than that, I LOVE the old DOS systems. They were lean and mean.

We want our &quot;new and improved&quot; computers to either DO more, or do it faster. It's obvious they don't do it noticable faster - so where does it really do more? What's the justification for the upgrades?

It leads right back to the point - the computers today don't justify an upgrade over the computers of 2 to 3 years ago.

 

[pamchenko]

just to clarify, while I'm saying that ME is prettier...i run 98SE myself because ME had all these bugs and stuff

so you're saying 1 gig isn't necessary...maybe...I'm happy with my 850. I just need enough speed so that I don't hear substantial hard driving churning...is this a product of my imagination? possibly...but I refuse to pay premiums for newer products...I pick the best CPU value.

 

[Total Refected Power]

I use a P2 400 and a P3 500 running WIN NT at work. I run a P3 1Ghz on Win ME at home. Now these machines don't have equivalent hardware I do feel a difference between the P2 and the P3's, even in Office, but especially in my data analysis software. It could be a combination of slower hard drives and less memory but I do feel the P2 is sluggish.

 

[yakko]

While I'll agree that most businesses do not need fast computers in a few instances they do. I work in a call center and with the multiple applictions we need to run all night and the p3 500s with 64 megs of ram just don't cut it. None of apps by themselves are really that big of a deal but running all six at once can not be done. I have to constantly open and close the ones that are not needed on every call and I lose time waiting.

 

[Demon-Xanth]

Rio: oh, and my 500K6-2 never did work well with a software DVD decoder (partially due to the inability to enable DMA on that board), my Athlon@1GHz works extremely well and may find the hardware decoder removed.

 

[Rio Rebel]

Yakko,

No doubt that's true. Yours is the exception, though, not the rule.

I wish everyone could see this lab I'm in, though. It would blow your mind to realize just how useful these old 486's can be. They can run MS works 3.0 and the internet, and a huge list of educational software. That's 90% of what a school uses computers for (and still 10 years ahead of the average teacher - oops! Did I say that? )

If we actually had a coordinated effort (with strong incentives, not just tax write-offs) to move older computers from business to education, it would be a great benefit.

 

[Athanasius]

Rio: My guess is that the market driven industry will create a need, whether one exists or not. Our whole economy is consumer based. The answer to your three-pronged question, is &quot;all of the above.&quot;

It seems that you have already reached the same conclusion.

In my opinion, the industrial complex learned this lesson shortly after WW2. The war effort revitalized our economy. When the war ended, there was no longer enough &quot;demand&quot; to energize the &quot;supply.&quot; So we created more demand. Few people buy a car and keep it for 10 or fifteen years until it dies. Most people literally feel worse about themselves for driving an old car and better about themselves if they drive a new one. This is one example of creating the impression of a need where there is no need, only want.

The computer industry will adopt this same approach. We consume at a level so far above our needs that we can't even begin to discern where &quot;need&quot; ends and &quot;want&quot; begins. The consumer who is addicted to &quot;wants&quot; is easily manipulated.

Advertising appeals to the strangely self-contradictory human animal that is both proud/narcissistic/image-oriented and frail/self-doubting/easily manipulated at the same time.

Of course, I don't have any solution for this. What are we supposed to do, sit back and watch the economy collapse? Our entire economic structure is based on consumption. It might not even be possible to change that at this point.

 

[yakko]

<< It would blow your mind to realize just how useful these old 486's can be >>

One of my friends built a home network with a bunch of 486s. They do a lot of his menial tasks from a batch file. Saves time and his p2 350 is freed up for the things he needs to do manually.