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Comp.arch from the '80s thru the '00s is full of gems from actual CPU architects and other folks who deeply understood what they were talking about. Even (mayb

by kjs3 4y ago

Comp.arch from the '80s thru the '00s is full of gems from actual CPU architects and other folks who deeply understood what they were talking about. Even (maybe especially) when you had two pros who had very different philosophies, they brought so much fact and experience to their posts you could really see how and why the other side saw things. Now it seems like virtually all processor comparison is some variation on "who runs $HOTGAMESOFTHEMOMENT one FPS faster...that must be the best one".

mhh__ 4y ago
Games are a reasonably good stress of a CPU in real life. Most modern bench's are really unrealistic unless you're buying CPUs for raw compute (e.g. 100% util 24/7)
- kjs3 4y ago
  Games are a reasonably good stress of a CPU in real life. No they aren't. In 'real life', games, especially high resource games, are inconsequential compared to, say, performance of Excel, Word or web browsing for the overwhelmingly majority of users.
  - xanathar 4y ago
    That criteria would just say "every CPU is ok" because ultimately only potatoes are unfit to run those problems. And nobody wants a review website posting "just buy a Celeron or whatever costs less and be happy" for 15 years straight. On the other hand, measuring on, say, protein folding isn't likely to gather a lot of interest because most people are not buying laptops to run HPC research. So, ultimately the reason videogames (and video encoding, compression, image processing and a few other workloads) are chosen is because they are workloads where the CPU really makes a difference and is interesting to the average reader if not because it's their problem, at least because they are close enough to be understandable. (A separate 10 page post would be required to dig into the GPU role and impact of those tests)
  - mhh__ 4y ago
    Excel and word don't stress my machine, games do.
dboreham 4y ago
Reading Mash's posts on comp.arch led me to drop my resume off at reception at the office on Arques Ave in the hope of finding a job there. Probably 1989. Didn't get a call back. Good times though.

by kjs3 4y ago

mhh__ 4y ago

Games are a reasonably good stress of a CPU in real life. Most modern bench's are really unrealistic unless you're buying CPUs for raw compute (e.g. 100% util 24/7)

kjs3 4y ago
Games are a reasonably good stress of a CPU in real life. No they aren't. In 'real life', games, especially high resource games, are inconsequential compared to, say, performance of Excel, Word or web browsing for the overwhelmingly majority of users.
- xanathar 4y ago
  That criteria would just say "every CPU is ok" because ultimately only potatoes are unfit to run those problems. And nobody wants a review website posting "just buy a Celeron or whatever costs less and be happy" for 15 years straight. On the other hand, measuring on, say, protein folding isn't likely to gather a lot of interest because most people are not buying laptops to run HPC research. So, ultimately the reason videogames (and video encoding, compression, image processing and a few other workloads) are chosen is because they are workloads where the CPU really makes a difference and is interesting to the average reader if not because it's their problem, at least because they are close enough to be understandable. (A separate 10 page post would be required to dig into the GPU role and impact of those tests)
- mhh__ 4y ago
  Excel and word don't stress my machine, games do.

dboreham 4y ago

Reading Mash's posts on comp.arch led me to drop my resume off at reception at the office on Arques Ave in the hope of finding a job there. Probably 1989. Didn't get a call back. Good times though.