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Post the best analogy of why MHz is MHz is MHz is simply not true

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I've got a few:

--A relay race: One team is faster than the other. But the faster team has more members.
--The Shortest distance between 2 points is a straight line. Intel follows the curvy path, AMD cuts through the woods.
--Counting: Intel counts the dimes fast. AMD counts the quarters slow.
--Think of a cartoon that runs really really fast, but doesn't go anywhere ;)
--Bikes: Gear 1 or gear 21?
--When you paint a wall do you use a large brush or a small brush?
--The small kid is gonna have to run a lot faster to tackle you.

I personally like the cartoon one
Dinominant
 
Ok here is one i thought up a while ago, and it sounds like what your looking for ...

It's like A vs B.

"You have 4 pennies in one hand and 1 nickel in the other. "

B xxx faster but you get more xxx with A.

"A child will always go for the pennies, cause 4 is more then 1. But 1 nickel is worth more then 4 cents ."


I also made up analogies for ram and the like , trying to explain to people why they dont need 1024mb of ram to have a gaming computer. Its hard for people to relearn what marketing has guided them to see.
 
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I've been thinking about it, and for an analogy to be great it has to relate well to what the person knows. If you use one of the engine analogies on a theoretical physist, he might not have any clue what you were talking about. On the other hand, if you used it on a car buff, it may promote future discussion and lead to understanding in the future.
 
OC Detective said:
Not exactly an analogy that Barton!
Two guys cutting up wood
One is 175 pounds the other 200+ pounds, the lighter guy although he cant hit as hard as the heavier guy can chop faster and hence does more work than the heavier guy who is slightly slower. As the heavier guy hits harder and his work rate is slower they both finish cutting the wood at roughly the same time.

I thought this was close, but I would use the comparison of logging saws. Two man saw does work on both passes. One man saw does work on one pass only.
 
AMD has bigger wheelbarrows, but are a bit slower.
Intel has smaller wheelbarrows, but are a bit faster.

They both end up moving 1000 lbs of hay in the same time.

(Tell that to a farmer.)
 
heres an analogy.....
A big guy and a kid are blowing up balloons, they each breath in and exhale into the balloon at the same time. The big guy, lets name him Allen Mark Dickins, or AMD for short, is going to fill the balloon up faster due to his getting more work done during the same time. The little kid, Intel, can breathe just as fast, but doesnt get as much work done in same time due to smaller lungs.
 
c627627 said:
I know you all don't answer
"...but this one has more m'gahurtz"
with talk about 'work per clock cycle'.

How do you illustrate it to them?

Thank you Graphic67 and Hoot very much for trying. :thup:
If anyone posts another good example that can be used on the less litterate, I'd be grateful.

Hmm... My parents usually say im good at explaining it to the average joe.. I just say for everymhz, it does 1.5x the work!(athlon vs p4) LOL! (Not accurate I know, but its a way to make it simple ;) )
 
I still like the good old;


Two students take the same test, student A does the test faster but has some mistakes to correct, student B is a little slower buts get them all right; both students are 'done' at the same time.

It's all relative

Intel is faster but it has farther to go (explanation)

two dogs are running, one takes the direct route the other takes the scenic route, both finish at about the same time. Use basic math
 
Theoretically an Athlon XP would do 1.33 times the work of a Northwood P4 per Mhz, but obviously there are other variables which influence the actual amount up and down. It is accurate enough for a ignoramous though, if you take that figure and multiply the clock speed of a 3200+ you get about 2.9, which is close enough to the clock speed of a P4 that would generally benchmark similarly to it. As for an anology, I use have used the engine one, but heres another I just thought of. Say you have two equally thirsty people each with a can of soda. The first persons can has a widemouth as is common today, and the second person has a narrow mouth. More soda comes out of the 1st persons can per drink, so he doesn't have to drink as often to satisfy his thirst. The second person can't get as much soda out of his can, so he has to drink more often, and with longer drinks. In the end, the first person will not had to hold the can to his mouth as long as the 2nd person to satisfy his thirst.
 
You have a fat kid pushing a big wheelbarrel, and a athelete puching a small wheel barrow. They both have the same mound to move the same distance. They do the work in the same amount of time. The fat kid only did X passes, the athelete did double x passes. Do you want to be the fat kid and walk a mile, or the athelete and run a marathon, remember you both do the work in the same amount of time.
 
ok here is one

AMD = riding mower
Intell = push mower

with amd you cut more grass per pass because of more blades while intell has to make more passes becasue it has one blade
 
hitechjb1 said:
Analogy for comparing CPU cycles

To summarize the technical details, simply put:

For XP and P4 (with 2 SMT),

P4 can be clocked roughly 25% higher than an XP.
But an XP executes about 25% more instructions per cycle than a P4 (for integer arithmetic).
So both are roughly a tie in term of number of instructions executed per sec (a performance measure).

For details,
What is IPC and how to compare cycle or Hz for different CPU architectures (page 19)

The 25% is derived from benchmarks, and it may vary slightly for a different set of program codes.
Since it is roughly a tie, so both sides should be happy.


For an analogy without using computer terms, one may say

A person called P4 walks 25% more steps per unit time than another person called XP.
But the step of XP is 25% longer than the step of P4.
So both would travel the same distance over the same period of time.



The analogy is:

clock cycle <--> foot step
cycles per second <--> foot steps per second
instruction executed <--> distance travelled
instruction executed per second <--> distance travelled per second (a performance measure)


cycle time = 1 / frequency

What is cycle time and frequency
 
DIgressing back to the engine analogy... I think this is far simpler than it is made out to be... and we have to really just shy away from the AMD vs Intel thing... that's just silly.

It's not about 4 cyl versus 8 cyl... it's about displacement.

If you have a small engine at 3000 RPM and a big engine at 3000 RPM they simply do not make the same power given that they utilize the same technology... the larger engine will have a lot more rotating mass and be taking in a lot more fuel and air at the same RPM and therefore it will make more power and more torque at 3000 than the smaller engine... this is true whether it be a 4.0L V8 vs a 7.0L V8 or a 1.3L I4 vs a 2.0L I4.

The power per rotation will not be the same... just like each cycle of one CPU is different from another.
 
I like the one I came up with, very idiot friendly.

You take stairs two at a time, your friend takes them one at a time, you take less strides per second, he takes more strides per second. But you both get there at the same time regardless.

If you and your friend were to take the same strides per second, you would be much faster that your friend.
 
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