5 ms·

When I hear "priced at a fraction of", I would assume the fraction to be well under a half. Here, it's used for a fraction of 5800/7890 ~ 73.5%, which I find r

by tromp 5y ago

When I hear "priced at a fraction of", I would assume the fraction to be well under a half. Here, it's used for a fraction of 5800/7890 ~ 73.5%, which I find rather misleading. It would be more accurate to say it costs a fraction less than x86.

larsbrinkhoff 5y ago
That's an odd assumption. Let's be rational: 1.5 is also a fraction. 1/π isn't, even though it's less than 0.5. I don't mean to sound negative, but it's not very complex.
- ben_w 5y ago
  It’s not a rational fraction, but I think it’s still a fraction. And now I’m wondering about 1/i, inverse quaternions (I barely get those even normally), and if 1/M ≠ M^(-1). (Nice puns, BTW).
  - OJFord 5y ago
    A rational number is one that can be written as a fraction (of two integers). What's a rational fraction? Integer parts as opposed to e.g. 1.5/2.3?
  - caddybox 5y ago
    A rational number (with a terminating decimal representation or a repeating, non-terminating decimal representation) can always be expressed in fractional p/q form. I don't think the additional "rational" qualifier is needed for fractions.
    - ben_w 5y ago
      Looks like all three replies to this share the same misunderstanding of my intent, so I assume my use of “it’s” was unhelpfully vague. 1/pi is not rational and therefore not “a rational fraction”, but think 1/pi is “a fraction”.
      - caddybox 5y ago
        Your comment brought me to the realization that the relationship doesn't hold both ways. A rational number can always be written as a fraction but a fraction is not always rational. Never considered this before today :)
  - hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago
    Of course these exist and that's why we have the process of rationalization.[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationalisation_(mathematics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationalisation_(mathematics)
  - samus 5y ago
    1/i = (1/i) * (i/i) = i/(i*i) = i/(-1) = -i
- Asraelite 5y ago
  "A fraction of" does not literally mean a fraction of in the mathematical sense. Its commonly accepted use in English is much more refined.
- Cantinflas 5y ago
  Well, 5/2 is also a fraction... What would you think of the headline if the fraction they refered to was 5/2?
- hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago
  If you ignore the meaning assigned to it in everyday English and concentrate on the mathematical sense, it leads to absurdities as practically all physical objects can be described in terms of fractions as they include improper fractions, irrational and complex numbers in the nominator or denominator etc. "A fraction of the price" means "significantly less". When someone promises to sell you a new Macbook for a fraction of the price but it turns out the price difference is 5 cents, from your point of view they're correct but you have every right to feel cheated.
BackBlast 5y ago
I've been using them in production. I've been pleased with the value proposition offered. It helps that, on our workload, arm overperforms relative to published benchmarks while AMD underperforms.
- sidkshatriya 5y ago
  How many cores version do you have? Are you able to use all the software you need to? Are the machines "rock solid" or are there some teething issues?
  - BackBlast 5y ago
    Not able to use it for the whole stack. Some of our stack doesn't run on arm. Don't have a bare metal machine, just some modest sized virtual machines with 2 cores each. They have been stable.
amelius 5y ago
Before I came here I just knew the top comment would be about this headline rather than the actual meat of the content. I just wish we could have a separate moderation type for comments like this, so they can be moved to the bottom. Complaints about a website being slow, popups, etc. also fall in this category.
- simonh 5y ago
  What really irks me is quibbling about headlines that are technically inaccurate, but are actually just common everyday usage that everyone understands perfectly well not to take literally. Comments like that have deeply negative value and drive me up the wall. In this case though I think I agree with the criticism, in everyday usage "a fraction of" is generally taken to mean quite a small fraction, which this isn't. Another commenter is applying the literal definition of fraction to argue the title is accurate, and quite rightly getting downvoted into oblivion for it. Everybody (who is a native English speaker) knows very well what this phrase is taken to mean in everyday English.
- Snoozus 5y ago
  Well what is the meat of the content? The article says they are a bit cheaper, overstates by how much and does not put that in relation to any measure of performance. "Lada Cost a Fraction of Bentley" thank you very much.
- bjarneh 5y ago
  > rather than the actual meat of the content To be fair, there isn't much "meat" in that article, it's mainly about the price - and I guess most would agree that when we hear the word "fraction" used like that we don't think about 73/100. If you were told you could get a laptop at a fraction of the cost on Black Friday, and the fraction turned out to be 98/100; wouldn't you be somewhat confused?
panini-grammar 5y ago
Please note at the processors under the study - Ampere processor has 128 cores ($5.8K or $45 per core), AMD processor has 64 cores ($7.9K or $123 per core), Intel processor has 40 cores ($8.1K or $202 per core), Still Ampere's cost is 50% less than AMD/Intel's cost 'in per core' price. So, I think, article used correct word 'fraction'. Yes, there may other advantages in Intel/AMD, which I do not have knowledge of the below ex: - clk speed, - L1/L2/L3 cache size and speed, - peripherals ... - etc (I tend to feel, Ampere is better in these too. Question is about chipset, SW base etc )
- ekianjo 5y ago
  are the cores equivalent though?
  - sidkshatriya 5y ago
    Good point. Intel's 40 cores are basically 80 cores due to hyper threading. Some people don't like hyperthreading for various reasons but it would be better to say the comparison is between 128 cores of Ampere and 80 cores of Intel. But then again, number of cores is really a crude measure. We need to measure what those machines can really do... P.S. Surprised I am being downvoted. If you only want to compare number of cores then I was implying that 80 is a better number than 40 to compare with 128. It gives you a rough idea of parallelism even though obviously HT does not give you 2x available cores all the time. I also added a caveat that that number of cores is a crude measure anyways.
    - holbrad 5y ago
      That isn't how hyperthreading works... It's completely dependent on the workload. If your using the CPU core as efficiently as possible, you'd see no benefit from hyperthreading. If your using it very poorly, you'd see a massive 2~x benefit.
      - esens 5y ago
        When doing C++ compiles and also renders I see a 2x benefit generally. It is rare that I do not see something close to 1.5 to 2x speed ups. That said I did switch from Intel over to an Apple M1 anyway.
deleted 5y ago
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by tromp 5y ago

larsbrinkhoff 5y ago

That's an odd assumption. Let's be rational: 1.5 is also a fraction. 1/π isn't, even though it's less than 0.5. I don't mean to sound negative, but it's not very complex.

ben_w 5y ago
It’s not a rational fraction, but I think it’s still a fraction. And now I’m wondering about 1/i, inverse quaternions (I barely get those even normally), and if 1/M ≠ M^(-1). (Nice puns, BTW).
- OJFord 5y ago
  A rational number is one that can be written as a fraction (of two integers). What's a rational fraction? Integer parts as opposed to e.g. 1.5/2.3?
- caddybox 5y ago
  A rational number (with a terminating decimal representation or a repeating, non-terminating decimal representation) can always be expressed in fractional p/q form. I don't think the additional "rational" qualifier is needed for fractions.
  - ben_w 5y ago
    Looks like all three replies to this share the same misunderstanding of my intent, so I assume my use of “it’s” was unhelpfully vague. 1/pi is not rational and therefore not “a rational fraction”, but think 1/pi is “a fraction”.
    - caddybox 5y ago
      Your comment brought me to the realization that the relationship doesn't hold both ways. A rational number can always be written as a fraction but a fraction is not always rational. Never considered this before today :)
- hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago
  Of course these exist and that's why we have the process of rationalization.[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationalisation_(mathematics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationalisation_(mathematics)
- samus 5y ago
  1/i = (1/i) * (i/i) = i/(i*i) = i/(-1) = -i
Asraelite 5y ago
"A fraction of" does not literally mean a fraction of in the mathematical sense. Its commonly accepted use in English is much more refined.
Cantinflas 5y ago
Well, 5/2 is also a fraction... What would you think of the headline if the fraction they refered to was 5/2?
hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago
If you ignore the meaning assigned to it in everyday English and concentrate on the mathematical sense, it leads to absurdities as practically all physical objects can be described in terms of fractions as they include improper fractions, irrational and complex numbers in the nominator or denominator etc. "A fraction of the price" means "significantly less". When someone promises to sell you a new Macbook for a fraction of the price but it turns out the price difference is 5 cents, from your point of view they're correct but you have every right to feel cheated.

BackBlast 5y ago

I've been using them in production. I've been pleased with the value proposition offered. It helps that, on our workload, arm overperforms relative to published benchmarks while AMD underperforms.

sidkshatriya 5y ago
How many cores version do you have? Are you able to use all the software you need to? Are the machines "rock solid" or are there some teething issues?
- BackBlast 5y ago
  Not able to use it for the whole stack. Some of our stack doesn't run on arm. Don't have a bare metal machine, just some modest sized virtual machines with 2 cores each. They have been stable.

amelius 5y ago

Before I came here I just knew the top comment would be about this headline rather than the actual meat of the content. I just wish we could have a separate moderation type for comments like this, so they can be moved to the bottom. Complaints about a website being slow, popups, etc. also fall in this category.

simonh 5y ago
What really irks me is quibbling about headlines that are technically inaccurate, but are actually just common everyday usage that everyone understands perfectly well not to take literally. Comments like that have deeply negative value and drive me up the wall. In this case though I think I agree with the criticism, in everyday usage "a fraction of" is generally taken to mean quite a small fraction, which this isn't. Another commenter is applying the literal definition of fraction to argue the title is accurate, and quite rightly getting downvoted into oblivion for it. Everybody (who is a native English speaker) knows very well what this phrase is taken to mean in everyday English.
Snoozus 5y ago
Well what is the meat of the content? The article says they are a bit cheaper, overstates by how much and does not put that in relation to any measure of performance. "Lada Cost a Fraction of Bentley" thank you very much.
bjarneh 5y ago
> rather than the actual meat of the content To be fair, there isn't much "meat" in that article, it's mainly about the price - and I guess most would agree that when we hear the word "fraction" used like that we don't think about 73/100. If you were told you could get a laptop at a fraction of the cost on Black Friday, and the fraction turned out to be 98/100; wouldn't you be somewhat confused?

panini-grammar 5y ago

Please note at the processors under the study - Ampere processor has 128 cores ($5.8K or $45 per core), AMD processor has 64 cores ($7.9K or $123 per core), Intel processor has 40 cores ($8.1K or $202 per core), Still Ampere's cost is 50% less than AMD/Intel's cost 'in per core' price. So, I think, article used correct word 'fraction'. Yes, there may other advantages in Intel/AMD, which I do not have knowledge of the below ex: - clk speed, - L1/L2/L3 cache size and speed, - peripherals ... - etc (I tend to feel, Ampere is better in these too. Question is about chipset, SW base etc )

ekianjo 5y ago
are the cores equivalent though?
- sidkshatriya 5y ago
  Good point. Intel's 40 cores are basically 80 cores due to hyper threading. Some people don't like hyperthreading for various reasons but it would be better to say the comparison is between 128 cores of Ampere and 80 cores of Intel. But then again, number of cores is really a crude measure. We need to measure what those machines can really do... P.S. Surprised I am being downvoted. If you only want to compare number of cores then I was implying that 80 is a better number than 40 to compare with 128. It gives you a rough idea of parallelism even though obviously HT does not give you 2x available cores all the time. I also added a caveat that that number of cores is a crude measure anyways.
  - holbrad 5y ago
    That isn't how hyperthreading works... It's completely dependent on the workload. If your using the CPU core as efficiently as possible, you'd see no benefit from hyperthreading. If your using it very poorly, you'd see a massive 2~x benefit.
    - esens 5y ago
      When doing C++ compiles and also renders I see a 2x benefit generally. It is rare that I do not see something close to 1.5 to 2x speed ups. That said I did switch from Intel over to an Apple M1 anyway.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]