Clock Race Over

What is this article about:
About product names
About the mass buyer
About AMD Marketing Strategy
About why Apple has only three lines of laptops

Remember those days when you went to the store, compared the clock frequencies of the two systems and chose the right car? Everything else did not matter. The hard disk could be updated, the RAM increased, only the clock frequency could not be changed. 1.8 GHz has always been better than 1.5 GHz. Right?
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Nowadays, everything is different. Moore 's law that "the number of transistors on a chip will double every 24 months" no longer works, which is why multi-core processors appeared on the consumer electronics market. When there are several cores in the system, the clock frequency no longer matters. Marking quad-core processor "2.5 GHz" says that the chip has four cores and the clock frequency of each is 2.5 GHz. However, it’s quite naive to believe that we will get a theoretical performance of 10 GHz.

AMD, and now, to some extent, Intel, abandon the concept when the main characteristic of the processor is only the clock frequency and, apparently, this year will be a turning point. Take a look at the AMD Vision page . A new idea of ​​naming is based on the tasks for which a particular system is optimal. For example, Vision Premium series devices will be an excellent choice for:

• Works with multiple applications at the same time
• Mainstream games
• CD to MP3 conversion
• Basic photo editing features
• Watch Blu-ray / HD-video
• Using a webcam

If you further click on the “Show me Vision Premium Laptops” button (Show me Vision Premium category laptops), you will be shown a list of computers of completely different capacities and configurations. It is understood that if the laptop is on the Vision list, then it is automatically recognized as quite good. The only thing that matters in this case is the price. If you pay more, you get more. If there is a desire to modify the hardware, the only change that will affect the price is the change in the amount of RAM and hard disk. As a rule, the processor and video adapter will remain the same.

Such a system seems more logical and convenient. Now, the question “Which laptop should I buy?” Can be easily answered like: “Here, choose the most attractive one and go to the cashier”. Whether we like it or not, this happens, the products of the IT industry go through the commoditization process, becoming a mass commodity.

It may sound like a joke, but just look around. In the yard of the 2010th year. The growth rate of computing power is slowing. When the iPad and its analogs in functionality can be compared with Alienware's monstrous gaming laptops, what speed can we talk about? A modern mass customer asks the question “Can you watch a video on this computer?” Or “Can you play it on it?” ... yes, you can play it and watch the video. ” No one wants to go into numbers and incomprehensible terms. Suffice it to say, “Is the computer running Windows 7? Yes, most likely, some good games will be played on it. ” There are thousands of different games, and most of them will work on a modern computer. Do you need an ultimate performance? Build the system yourself or go to the Vision Black section. The choice is yours and now this choice is made even easier.

It would be quite wonderful if Intel developed a similar nomenclature for its processors. Segmentation of the product line into several simple blocks will allow to get rid of useless complexity and, ultimately, allow the consumer to make a choice himself, simplify the process of this choice. This is the answer to the question of why Apple, after so many years on the market, has only a few macbook models. For comparison, remember the same Asus EEE, which is already time to release a separate directory.

Article by editor-in-chief of CrunchGear, John Biggins (John Biggs)