Oh yeah? Says who?
A billion transistors, really? How do you count that many? I mean, how would I know if there weren’t really say, 850 million transistors? I want someone to explain this to me.
More bigger
I guess it’s not such a novel idea to emphasize large numbers. Bigger equal better, right? More megapixels for cameras, more Hz for computer CPUs, and now, Intel boasts 2 billion, with a “b” transistors in their latest Core i7 980X processor. Impressive, to be sure, but how does that translate into better. We are just now beginning to understand the megapixel count ain’t all that matters. There’s the lens, size of sensor as well to consider.
Granted, breaking the 2 billion barrier is something to crow about. However, my problem with all these numeric milestones is that they are virtually unprovable. We take these numbers at face value. This is not to imply that Intel or any other electronic maker is not being honest. It’s just that these overly marketed metrics can be misleading.
Uh-huh… uh-huh… ahhh what?
To Intel’s credit, transistor count is mentioned more in press releases than in the official documented specs. There, you’ll find other more “pedestrian” details such as Cache, Clock speed, number of cores and hyperthreading. Now there’s something we all can sink our teeth into.
Real world benchmarks
Seriously, how about some benchmarks we can all relate to; along the lines of 0-60mph and the quarter mile measures used for automobiles. Game playing, HD DVD ripping, video rendering are a few possibilities. The experts would need to quantify how to make these measurements meaningful. But hey, that shouldn’t be an issue. They figured out how to fit two billion transistors on something the size of a postage stamp for crying out loud.
The rate at which technology advances makes one numb after a while. It’d be a real service to us to all if companies could translate these complex advancements in a way that’s more meaningful to the laymen -not as a replacement but additionally.
By the way, if you’re interested in more on the new Intel 980X, you can find details on their website along with independent comprehensive reviews at AnandTech and LegitReviews to name just a couple.
Update: After digging deeper into Intel’s specs we were able to find some benchmarks that are along the lines requested above. You can find the good stuff by clicking the “+” signs.
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