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98 Comments
- pathouston22, on 04/09/2009, -0/+83Too bad your 5 star processor will be a 3 star in 6 months or a year.
- GerbilSoft, on 04/09/2009, -0/+71Rumor has it that the first Intel CPU featuring this rating system, the Pentium, will have a rating of 4.99999999834895187591 stars.
- inactive, on 04/09/2009, -3/+51My CPU came with a complimentary continental breakfast.
- raptordrew, on 04/09/2009, -0/+37It's funny because he's referring to a floating point error.
- inactive, on 04/09/2009, -4/+39Why does everything need to be dumbed down?
- serif69, on 04/09/2009, -0/+33I'm calling William Shatner next time I have to buy a processor. "It's... a guaranteed four-star chip... at one-star price!"
- nak5ive, on 04/09/2009, -13/+44apple's next line of hardware: 3 star processor, 5 star price
- brad3378, on 04/09/2009, -0/+25Oversimplification sounds less transparent to me.
- ghostofpanty, on 04/09/2009, -0/+253 star article
- eramos, on 04/09/2009, -4/+25How dare people not want to learn the intricate details of an ever changing and technical microprocessor industry just so they can make a semi-informed purchase every 3-5 years?!?! RARGH DUMBING DOWN OF AMERICA WHARGARBL
- anexanhume, on 04/09/2009, -0/+20Yeah, I'd place a lot of trust in a system where hotels assigned their own star values.
- nullcodes, on 04/09/2009, -0/+20You could explain it like this:
"you know how Aunt Hilda won a beauty pageant in 1979?"
"yes"
"well she can't win one today" - pathouston22, on 04/09/2009, -3/+20Current line*
- frmatc, on 04/09/2009, -1/+18So now they're going to fall for "It has more stars so it must be better" instead. Brilliant. Hey, Intel, I've got a brilliant marketing plan. Give all your products 5 stars.
- kd420, on 04/09/2009, -0/+17And a 8200 is wayyyy better than a lowly 295! It only has 3 digits lol!
- KainDL, on 04/09/2009, -0/+16HEY! in my defence, I thought I knew what I was doing. Bigger numbers are better right? I mean that 8600 I got is probably at least 700 things better then the 7900 that cost a lot more!
- brad3378, on 04/09/2009, -0/+16Maybe people no longer fall for
"It costs more so it must be better"
rating system - MrInfallible, on 04/09/2009, -1/+17I hired mine for an hour, but was finished after about 20 minutes
- kd420, on 04/09/2009, -1/+16Because people are dumbed down.
- inactive, on 04/09/2009, -3/+16Mine had stains all over it...
- inactive, on 04/09/2009, -2/+15It's helpful for people who don't know what they're doing and are too stupid or stubborn to find someone willing to help them, I suppose.
- momedefome, on 04/09/2009, -1/+13This is just stupid , stars???? are you gonna have some dude say Thumbs up too?????
- nullcodes, on 04/09/2009, -0/+12If I was AMD or whatever competition, I would say "we don't know about Intel, but all OUR processors are 5 star!".
- kent1146, on 04/09/2009, -0/+10No, because price/performance ratio isn't linear.
Intel Core i7 920 is ~$290. Actual performance is probably rated a 9.2 out of 10.
Intel Core i7 965 is ~$1000. Actual perfomance rating is 10 out of 10.
By your system that assumes price/performance is directly related, it would look like the Core i7 965 performs 3.3x as well as the Core i7 920, because it costs 3.3x as much. - whiledo, on 04/09/2009, -0/+10There are chips with 1 and 2 star ratings now, but I wonder how that will change if sales drop for those chips. The marketing guys always have far more say than the technical guys when sales are down.
And has already been pointed out, today's 5 star is next year's 4 star and five year's from now's 0 star.
Dumb dumb dumb. At least from a technical point of view. Who knows if it will work as a marketing gimmick. - EricAnderton, on 04/09/2009, -0/+9The clincher is that it's all task specific, thanks to the performance characteristics of multi-core processors and graphics acceleration. If we had benchmarks that were applied to standard tests for different types of users - engineers, musicians, web users, developers, gamers - we could get somewhere.
To that end, I fail to see how a "5/5 stars" rating is going to do anything other than say "this is why it's expensive." - anexanhume, on 04/09/2009, -1/+10OM NOP NOP NOP
(please, someone get this joke) - zgf2022, on 04/09/2009, -0/+9Oh joy, I CANNOT wait to explain to relatives why their system with a 4 star cpu is slow as ***** four years after they buy it. Unless of course every successive generation gets even more stars, but then we'd be basically back to model numbers wouldn't we.
- pOwErEdByNOS, on 04/09/2009, -2/+11How about they cleanup their product line. Atom, Pentium, Celeron, Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Quad, Core i7, and Core i7 Extreme Edition; a few too many if you ask me.
- merreborn, on 04/09/2009, -3/+11Because the only people who really understand all the differences between chips are overclockers, reviewers, and Intel engineers?
I've been using computers since I could hold a mouse, and have been working in software development for years, and I couldn't tell you the difference between the Centrino and Core 2 mobile processors. If I don't know, how the hell is Joe Sixpack going to know? - inactive, on 04/09/2009, -0/+8dugg for WHARGARBL
- HarleyQuinn, on 04/09/2009, -0/+7Agreed, this does not factor in time. Id10t computer shoppers will still get 'taken' down the road when retailers try to clear out old stock... "Yes, it is a 5 star 486". (from 1990, had this been in place then) Meh...
- Aleman360, on 04/09/2009, -1/+8Nowadays the average consumer doesn't even need to care about CPU speed--even netbooks will suffice for most needs. But anyways, someone who doesn't know much about computers would be clueless trying to compare the technical specifications of an Atom to a Core i7. So something like this is definitely necessary.
- MacEnvy, on 04/09/2009, -1/+8You could *gasp* look it up before making a major purchase. It's not like we're suffering from a shortage of places on the web that test and explain CPU performance.
- rifaco, on 04/09/2009, -0/+6Weren't they doing this already, except with brains?
- skintigh, on 04/09/2009, -2/+8Because they intentionally made it so complicated and misleading that nobody can understand it.
Quick, which is faster: a 2.4GHz Dual Core, a 2.2GHz Core 2 Duo, or a 1.8GHz Quad core? Oh, and throw in some Centrinos and Mobiles and Atoms, too.
How about some benchmarks we can all agree on? I know, pipe dream, and then they would just game the benchmarks. - inactive, on 04/09/2009, -0/+5Yeah, we live in a world with specific CPU's designated for specific tasks - the horror of doing 20 minutes of research! THE HORROR!!!1
- EricAnderton, on 04/09/2009, -0/+5@MacEnvy: I'm not saying it's impossible, or something someone shouldn't be compelled to do since we're talking hundreds of dollars here - but the data is spread out all over the ***** place. Seriously. It takes some real effort to research and cross-compare this stuff since there's so many variables to take into account. :)
Back in the good 'ol days, we'd just go "yup, 80Mhz *is* faster than 60Mhz. I'll take the fast one please." - MaverickAlex, on 04/09/2009, -0/+5So how to they determine what star level to apply to a CPU? If this is Intel rating their own products, and not a third party, this will be useless. Who says they won't just rate the ones they want to get rid of with a higher rating, most people are clueless on how a CPU actually works and the people that do understand won't look at the star rating anyways. There is more to a CPU then just clock speed, front side bus speed, l1 cache, l2 cache, l3 cache, which are shared between cores, etc. It seem unlikely they will be able to factor all these into a star.
- Po0py, on 04/09/2009, -0/+5I was pretty proud of my E6850 untill I read it was already a three star. :(
- drmangrum, on 04/09/2009, -3/+7We no longer live a world that only has two choices that are updated once a year. CPU's are extremely hard to quantify at a head-to-head level. It used to just be AMD chip at xMHz vs Intil at xMHz.
People don't want to have perform the research needed to create a doctoral thesis to buy their next computer. - bcassner, on 04/09/2009, -2/+6OK idea, but they should have a third party rating these processors as to which is 5 star worthy. Like I said OK idea, but I will stick with my AMD processors.
- MacEnvy, on 04/09/2009, -1/+5Grandma wants "a Pentium computer", and by golly, Intel is going to sell it to her.
- Rivetgeek, on 04/09/2009, -1/+5better for what? thats the issue.
- SparkKnot, on 04/09/2009, -0/+3Yes, I've seen that in Dell's magazines...
- lolwutpear, on 04/09/2009, -1/+4They're still making Pentium and Celeron processors?
- minorthreat, on 04/09/2009, -0/+3not really. It's a gimmick to trick those who are ignorant on the subject into buying a processor they don't need.
Your mother who writes emails and visits cnn.com will do fine with a Pentium or possibly just a Celeron. However, No one wants to own a 1 or 2 star item, they will assume it's garbage. They will at least opt for a 3 star, but probably the 4 star. - Raptor007, on 04/09/2009, -0/+3Why did you write idiot like that? It's not like it's a ***** curse word.
- minorthreat, on 04/09/2009, -0/+3lowest common denominator. Advertisers have realized people don't like to think. People like everything handed to them. Make it simple, it's a win win situation. A win for the person taking money from the ignorant people and a win for the ignorant people not having to use their brain.
It just makes it really hard on the rest of us who would prefer to use our brain and not have to pay extra for the marketing cost that goes into a product. - pika2000, on 04/09/2009, -0/+3How is this going to help? What will happen 6 months later when intel release new processors? What would happen to today's processors? Intel would have to adjust the star ratings constantly. Like it or not, I have to think MS' Vista/7 performance index is probably a more logical solution than this.
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