dual processors and linux 1777

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I hereby accuse Michael Heiming of stating:

This is indeed intentional. Back around the time when AMD introduced their XP line of processors, the AMD and Intel processor design philosophies were going in two completely different directions. The best way to explain it in layman's terms is this:

The "hertz" number, or "clock rate" of a processor tells you how many "cycles" it goes through every second. How much "work" is done in a given "cycle", however, is variable. Intel chose to produce processors with very short cycles that did little bits of work, whereas AMD chose to produce processors with longer cycles that did more work.

The result of this was that Intel's clock rates kept rocketing up towards the stratosphere, while AMD's clock rates stayed lower, even though their processors ran just as fast or faster than the equivalent Intel. However, Intel had "trained" the marketplace, so to speak, that bigger number = better than. So AMD began giving their processors names 2000XP, 2400XP, where the number didn't refer to the clock speed of the AMD chip, but rather to the clock speed of the equivalent Intel chip. An AMD 2000XP actually runs at 1677 MHz, and as you found out a 2400XP runs somewhere around 2000 MHz.

The point is that this doesn't mean the AMD chips are slower than Intel's or that AMD is being deceptive - they're just combating Intel's marketing strategy.

Incidentally, this strategy is now coming back to bite Intel in the butt. While a higher clock rate does not equate directly to higher speeds, itdoesequate directly to higher operating temperatures. The new Intel "Core" line of processors borrows some pages from AMD's playbook, and runs with longer, more productive cycles. This in turn decreases their clock rate. Intel now has to convince their marketplace that these processors are indeed better and faster than their previous processors, even though they have a smaller number in the gigahertz column.

- -- S. Tyler McHenry

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