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Describing a gadget in terms of cumulative frequency of its cores is an A-Ok method of giving approximate performance, especially when it's obvious that it's a

by abcd_f 14y ago

Describing a gadget in terms of cumulative frequency of its cores is an A-Ok method of giving approximate performance, especially when it's obvious that it's a sum of cores. You and I and anyone moderately interested by this project know exactly what this number means. It is also pretty clear that they haven't meant to mislead or trick someone into thinking that they are building a 1THz computer for $99. So, yeah, it's nitpicking. A better angle would be - given the project and its goals, do you really think it's worth putting them down for something as trivial (and technically correct) as this - Once completed, the Parallella computer should deliver up to 45 GHz of equivalent CPU performance That, as they say on TechCrunch, is a dick move. If anything, they deserve a pat on a back and a donation.

laumars 14y ago
I'm not putting them down. My opinions of them are irrespective of the statistics they present. I love the idea of their project - I hate the idea of people like yourself perpetuating the same misconception that clock frequencies can by summed across cluster nodes. so my issue is with you regurgitating the same dumb fallacies. If you had even the slightest idea about how cores are rated and the complexities of multi-threaded development, then you'd realise that summing the frequency of the cores is completely inaccurate. Hell, don't you think Intel would be doing this with their multi-core processors if it was a legitimate statistic? (a point I've made several times now but you keep ignoring). You've been told by a multitude of people what the correct measure of cumulative processing power is, and instead you're still holding onto the same myth which the clickbait headlines are perpetuating. So really, you're just reinforcing my point about how they shouldn't be using such a dumb statistic because people who don't know any better will fall for it. Anyway, and FYI, core frequency isn't even a good measure of CPU performance on single core systems. A 1GHz RISC CPU will perform vastly differently to a 1GHz CISC. Then you have the plethora of RISC architectures; and even on x86, different CPUs will have different co-processors, caching, pipelining and even additional instructions, thus will perform differently on different stress tests. So crudely summing clock frequencies on a cluster is about as accurate a description of performance as remarking on the colour of the motherboard. But let's not let a pesky thing like science get in the way of our deeply held beliefs ;)
- abcd_f 14y ago
  You are smarter than me. At least you seem to think so.

by abcd_f 14y ago

laumars 14y ago

I'm not putting them down. My opinions of them are irrespective of the statistics they present. I love the idea of their project - I hate the idea of people like yourself perpetuating the same misconception that clock frequencies can by summed across cluster nodes. so my issue is with you regurgitating the same dumb fallacies. If you had even the slightest idea about how cores are rated and the complexities of multi-threaded development, then you'd realise that summing the frequency of the cores is completely inaccurate. Hell, don't you think Intel would be doing this with their multi-core processors if it was a legitimate statistic? (a point I've made several times now but you keep ignoring). You've been told by a multitude of people what the correct measure of cumulative processing power is, and instead you're still holding onto the same myth which the clickbait headlines are perpetuating. So really, you're just reinforcing my point about how they shouldn't be using such a dumb statistic because people who don't know any better will fall for it. Anyway, and FYI, core frequency isn't even a good measure of CPU performance on single core systems. A 1GHz RISC CPU will perform vastly differently to a 1GHz CISC. Then you have the plethora of RISC architectures; and even on x86, different CPUs will have different co-processors, caching, pipelining and even additional instructions, thus will perform differently on different stress tests. So crudely summing clock frequencies on a cluster is about as accurate a description of performance as remarking on the colour of the motherboard. But let's not let a pesky thing like science get in the way of our deeply held beliefs ;)

abcd_f 14y ago
You are smarter than me. At least you seem to think so.