4 ms·

Ugh. They keep using the term "gigahertz", and it does not mean what they think it means. Having 16 800MHz boards does not mean that you have anything running a

Ugh. They keep using the term "gigahertz", and it does not mean what they think it means. Having 16 800MHz boards does not mean that you have anything running at 13GHz; it's nonsensical to combine it that way, as any high school science student could tell them. This doesn't necessarily invalidate the product, but it really does put me off it. If they're going to market a product like that it's going to be to a pretty techy crowd and they should get their terminology right.

UnoriginalGuy 14y ago
While I agree that 16x800 Mhz is more accurate than 13 Ghz; I wouldn't say they got the terminology "wrong." A lot of companies are using the combined totals to tell how fast/big/etc something is. It isn't even a recent development either. Just for one example, if you go to Dell's store right now you'll find computers with 8 GB of RAM; but what they fail to tell you is that that is 2x4 GB sticks rather than 1x8 GB stick. So it is actually the "total" RAM in the machine. Now you might argue that for technical reasons there is a difference between how RAM and CPU-cores are exposed to the underlying software, but that within its self is only true in some infrastructural designs, but not true in others (e.g. Sometimes two cores pretend to be one, sometimes a single core pretends to be two).
- bane 14y ago
  Think of it this way. If I have 1 2-gallon bucket or 2 1-gallon buckets (or 4 half-gallon buckets), I still have 2 gallons of carrying capacity. But if I watch 1 clock for 60 seconds, the amount of time that has passed is exactly the same as if I watch 2 clocks for 60 seconds or 100 clocks for 60 seconds.
- Achshar 14y ago
  Kind of off topic but is there any major performance difference between 8x1 and 2x4 RAMs?
  - UnoriginalGuy 14y ago
    There can be. In particular in some scenarios the 2x4 GB set might be faster, here is why: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-channel_memory_architecture http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-channel_memory_architectu...
    - ajross 14y ago
      All desktop CPUs have 2 64 bit channels right now, you should never configure a machine with a single DIMM. The bigger server CPUs (e.g. the LGA2011 socket) have four. Mobile SoCs almost all use 1x32, though a few recent high end ones (Intel Medfield and the A6 at least) have 2x32.
- laumars 14y ago
  That not really the same though. Hz is a scale of the frequency of a CPU core. So it's not even a gauge of the execution speed of a CPU. You can't really multiply the cores together as the frequency hasn't increased, you've only increased the parallel capabilities (case in point, multi-core CPUs are rated per core, not cumulatively). RAM, however, can be added together as data can be cached across one or more sticks. Thus adding another stick of RAM does increase the overall total amount of RAM available. I'm not an expert on this, but I believe this is why clusters are measured in calculations per second (eg FLOPS) rather than frequencies. Calculations run in parallel (such as clusters do) are increasing the overall number of calculations performed per second. Where as multiple cores running in parallel don't increase the clock frequency.
- wheels 14y ago
  The RAM example is terrible. Accumulating RAM is application-transparent. Processor accumulation is not. Two small shovels aren't the same as one big shovel, but two small bags of dirt are basically the same as one big bag of dirt. If you're going to continue with the memory analogy, this would be like combining the graphics memory and general purpose RAM into a single figure.
  - backprojection 14y ago
    So a better analogy would be to quote total FLOPS.
    - addandsubtract 14y ago
      It would've been better to call it a hexa-core 800mHz machine.
      - flurpitude 14y ago
        Isn't hexa-core six cores? Whereas this has sixteen.
        archangel_one 14y ago
        Yes, probably it should be a hexadecicore or something along those lines.
        Arelius 14y ago
        I take pause at the term of "hexadecicore" and as we go up, it just starts to get more complicated... what would you call a 32 core machine? That just seems like an overly complicated and confusing approach to the problem.
        archangel_one 14y ago
        Well, I was obviously playing on "hexadecimal" which isn't great itself; it's a mish-mash of Latin and Greek, and should probably be "deca" instead of "deci" anyway. Regardless, it can't be worse than those stupid resolution acronyms like WUQXVGA which are, for some inexplicable reason, still managing to survive.
hippich 14y ago
I believe this was used to allow to compare performance of their offer with other products. I do not think they were trying to fool any of their potential customers who should easily understand what they are talking about. This might fool non-tech people, but non-tech people will not buy this product anyway.
- archangel_one 14y ago
  Just to clarify, I don't think they were trying to "fool" customers; if nothing else, surely nobody would believe that a genuine 13GHz chip is suddenly going to appear via Kickstarter. It just annoys me as a way of describing performance of their device; as someone else suggested, total FLOPS would have been a much better metric.
replax 14y ago
Even worse is, that in their kickstarter video they even say that the "old way" of increasing processor frequency does not work anymore and we therefore have to scale the amount of cores. It does not make any sense at all for them to add the numbers up, aside from being able to present a huge single number for marketing purposes. Even non tech people understand that a 4 x 2ghz processor is not a 8ghz processor....
- DanBC 14y ago
  > Even non tech people understand that a 4 x 2ghz processor is not a 8ghz processor.. Having spoken to a few non-tech people I'm pretty sure that I could find a bunch who don't understand anything in that sentence. Having spoken to some supposedly tech-savvy children on 4chan /g/ I know that there's a lot of confusion about cores and processors and speed, and that's before you talk about potential benefits and disbenefits.
flurpitude 14y ago
By their reckoning, a 3GHz i5 or i7 with 4 cores would be a 12GHz processor. Not so different from their promised "13GHz". Their hype makes me suspicious.
rm999 14y ago
It's not actually hz, it's cycles * hz, which is cycles per second. Cycles are additive: 1 cycle + 1 cycle = 2 cycles (in the same way that you get twice as many cycles in 2 seconds as you would in 1 second). We probably all prefer FLOPs/sec, but conceptually they are actually very similar - number of operations = number of clocks * number of operations per clock. Number of operations per clock isn't changing when you add more cores, so if you have a problem with summing clocks you should have a problem with summing FLOPs. As incredibly misleading as it is, our objections may largely come from preconceived notions of what a hz is. We want it to be a function of a single core because that's how we grew up thinking about it.
- archangel_one 14y ago
  Yes, my objection comes from a preconceived notion of what a Hz is, because it is the SI unit of frequency - so it has an internationally standardised meaning which you're meant to be able to rely on! In the same way, when I buy a 9V battery, I rely on my preconceived notion of what a volt is, and that's always worked out okay so far.
  - rm999 14y ago
    As I said, we aren't talking about hz, this is about cycle * hz. You aren't adding hz, you are adding cycles. I argued in my comment why I think this is ok.
    - archangel_one 14y ago
      They didn't say "cycle * hz" in their blurb anywhere, so I wasn't talking about it. I'll grant that it's a more sensible way of describing what's going on (although I think "cycles per second" sounds a little more natural, despite being equivalent), but it's unfortunately not what they actually said.
      - rm999 14y ago
        As a unitless unit, when people talk about hz they almost never mean just hz. In the case of computing, "hz" is always shorthand for cycles per second e.g. a 2 Ghz computer is 2 billion cycles per second.
nl 14y ago
Increasingly in the server space people use processor cycles additively (is that a word?) because to some degree you can work out how many vCPUs a physical server configuration will give you by adding the clock cycles of all the processors. It's not perfect - but is a lot easier than dealing with having to look up Intel CPU numbers to see how many cores it has, then multiplying that by the clock speed, then guessing. Getting the total cycles means you can jump straight to the guessing ("estimating") part.

UnoriginalGuy 14y ago

While I agree that 16x800 Mhz is more accurate than 13 Ghz; I wouldn't say they got the terminology "wrong." A lot of companies are using the combined totals to tell how fast/big/etc something is. It isn't even a recent development either. Just for one example, if you go to Dell's store right now you'll find computers with 8 GB of RAM; but what they fail to tell you is that that is 2x4 GB sticks rather than 1x8 GB stick. So it is actually the "total" RAM in the machine. Now you might argue that for technical reasons there is a difference between how RAM and CPU-cores are exposed to the underlying software, but that within its self is only true in some infrastructural designs, but not true in others (e.g. Sometimes two cores pretend to be one, sometimes a single core pretends to be two).

bane 14y ago
Think of it this way. If I have 1 2-gallon bucket or 2 1-gallon buckets (or 4 half-gallon buckets), I still have 2 gallons of carrying capacity. But if I watch 1 clock for 60 seconds, the amount of time that has passed is exactly the same as if I watch 2 clocks for 60 seconds or 100 clocks for 60 seconds.
Achshar 14y ago
Kind of off topic but is there any major performance difference between 8x1 and 2x4 RAMs?
- UnoriginalGuy 14y ago
  There can be. In particular in some scenarios the 2x4 GB set might be faster, here is why: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-channel_memory_architecture http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-channel_memory_architectu...
  - ajross 14y ago
    All desktop CPUs have 2 64 bit channels right now, you should never configure a machine with a single DIMM. The bigger server CPUs (e.g. the LGA2011 socket) have four. Mobile SoCs almost all use 1x32, though a few recent high end ones (Intel Medfield and the A6 at least) have 2x32.
laumars 14y ago
That not really the same though. Hz is a scale of the frequency of a CPU core. So it's not even a gauge of the execution speed of a CPU. You can't really multiply the cores together as the frequency hasn't increased, you've only increased the parallel capabilities (case in point, multi-core CPUs are rated per core, not cumulatively). RAM, however, can be added together as data can be cached across one or more sticks. Thus adding another stick of RAM does increase the overall total amount of RAM available. I'm not an expert on this, but I believe this is why clusters are measured in calculations per second (eg FLOPS) rather than frequencies. Calculations run in parallel (such as clusters do) are increasing the overall number of calculations performed per second. Where as multiple cores running in parallel don't increase the clock frequency.
wheels 14y ago
The RAM example is terrible. Accumulating RAM is application-transparent. Processor accumulation is not. Two small shovels aren't the same as one big shovel, but two small bags of dirt are basically the same as one big bag of dirt. If you're going to continue with the memory analogy, this would be like combining the graphics memory and general purpose RAM into a single figure.
- backprojection 14y ago
  So a better analogy would be to quote total FLOPS.
  - addandsubtract 14y ago
    It would've been better to call it a hexa-core 800mHz machine.
    - flurpitude 14y ago
      Isn't hexa-core six cores? Whereas this has sixteen.
      - archangel_one 14y ago
        Yes, probably it should be a hexadecicore or something along those lines.
        Arelius 14y ago
        I take pause at the term of "hexadecicore" and as we go up, it just starts to get more complicated... what would you call a 32 core machine? That just seems like an overly complicated and confusing approach to the problem.
        archangel_one 14y ago
        Well, I was obviously playing on "hexadecimal" which isn't great itself; it's a mish-mash of Latin and Greek, and should probably be "deca" instead of "deci" anyway. Regardless, it can't be worse than those stupid resolution acronyms like WUQXVGA which are, for some inexplicable reason, still managing to survive.

hippich 14y ago

I believe this was used to allow to compare performance of their offer with other products. I do not think they were trying to fool any of their potential customers who should easily understand what they are talking about. This might fool non-tech people, but non-tech people will not buy this product anyway.

archangel_one 14y ago
Just to clarify, I don't think they were trying to "fool" customers; if nothing else, surely nobody would believe that a genuine 13GHz chip is suddenly going to appear via Kickstarter. It just annoys me as a way of describing performance of their device; as someone else suggested, total FLOPS would have been a much better metric.

replax 14y ago

Even worse is, that in their kickstarter video they even say that the "old way" of increasing processor frequency does not work anymore and we therefore have to scale the amount of cores. It does not make any sense at all for them to add the numbers up, aside from being able to present a huge single number for marketing purposes. Even non tech people understand that a 4 x 2ghz processor is not a 8ghz processor....

DanBC 14y ago
> Even non tech people understand that a 4 x 2ghz processor is not a 8ghz processor.. Having spoken to a few non-tech people I'm pretty sure that I could find a bunch who don't understand anything in that sentence. Having spoken to some supposedly tech-savvy children on 4chan /g/ I know that there's a lot of confusion about cores and processors and speed, and that's before you talk about potential benefits and disbenefits.

flurpitude 14y ago

By their reckoning, a 3GHz i5 or i7 with 4 cores would be a 12GHz processor. Not so different from their promised "13GHz". Their hype makes me suspicious.

rm999 14y ago

It's not actually hz, it's cycles * hz, which is cycles per second. Cycles are additive: 1 cycle + 1 cycle = 2 cycles (in the same way that you get twice as many cycles in 2 seconds as you would in 1 second). We probably all prefer FLOPs/sec, but conceptually they are actually very similar - number of operations = number of clocks * number of operations per clock. Number of operations per clock isn't changing when you add more cores, so if you have a problem with summing clocks you should have a problem with summing FLOPs. As incredibly misleading as it is, our objections may largely come from preconceived notions of what a hz is. We want it to be a function of a single core because that's how we grew up thinking about it.

archangel_one 14y ago
Yes, my objection comes from a preconceived notion of what a Hz is, because it is the SI unit of frequency - so it has an internationally standardised meaning which you're meant to be able to rely on! In the same way, when I buy a 9V battery, I rely on my preconceived notion of what a volt is, and that's always worked out okay so far.
- rm999 14y ago
  As I said, we aren't talking about hz, this is about cycle * hz. You aren't adding hz, you are adding cycles. I argued in my comment why I think this is ok.
  - archangel_one 14y ago
    They didn't say "cycle * hz" in their blurb anywhere, so I wasn't talking about it. I'll grant that it's a more sensible way of describing what's going on (although I think "cycles per second" sounds a little more natural, despite being equivalent), but it's unfortunately not what they actually said.
    - rm999 14y ago
      As a unitless unit, when people talk about hz they almost never mean just hz. In the case of computing, "hz" is always shorthand for cycles per second e.g. a 2 Ghz computer is 2 billion cycles per second.

nl 14y ago

Increasingly in the server space people use processor cycles additively (is that a word?) because to some degree you can work out how many vCPUs a physical server configuration will give you by adding the clock cycles of all the processors. It's not perfect - but is a lot easier than dealing with having to look up Intel CPU numbers to see how many cores it has, then multiplying that by the clock speed, then guessing. Getting the total cycles means you can jump straight to the guessing ("estimating") part.