How to compare CPUs (for example Intel vs Apple)?

[Vanadium 50]

What is a picture "tube"? And an "aerial"?

 

[dlgoff]

When I was an undergrad, I played with a PDP-5 that used a paper tape reader on the side of a Teletype terminal. Not quite as fast.

I remember those. I played with the PDP-8.

 

[DrJohn]

How small do you think they'll get in the future? ...Say in 25 years?

I'm already impressed we have Apple Watches.

That tiny tiny screen just does not impress me one little bit. A tiny computer that can tell you the time, or let you read this forum two words at a time? Come on! They sell them to the terminally niave. IMHO

 

[Algr]

That tiny tiny screen just does not impress me one little bit. A tiny computer that can tell you the time, or let you read this forum two words at a time? Come on! They sell them to the terminally niave. IMHO

But what if it is so tiny that it fits in a contact lens? Or over your optic nerve? Then the screen will be as big as you want.

 

[DrJohn]

But what if it is so tiny that it fits in a contact lens? Or over your optic nerve? Then the screen will be as big as you want.

We will have to wait a bit for that to happen I suppose

 

[kyphysics]

That tiny tiny screen just does not impress me one little bit. A tiny computer that can tell you the time, or let you read this forum two words at a time? Come on! They sell them to the terminally niave. IMHO

My physical therapist says she uses her mainly to contact back and forth with her kids. Yeah, you can use a cell phone, so I'm not sure what she means by that.

Maybe it has features that make such an interaction easier? Mostly, I agree that the screen is too small for anything useful online.

 

[Algr]

I don't have one, but I suppose it could be good for notifications. Do you want to talk to this person who is calling/texting? Do you have an appointment? Is your pulse doing something strange?

 

[ETERNITY Starship]

Fritz Chess Benchmark is simple and easy use ... and has option to select single or multicore etc

http://www.jens-hartmann.at/Fritzmarks/

Fritzchessbench

*I write and run lots of benchmarks ... since around 2010 GHz speed increases have been incremental.

This means that other links in the computational chain have a far bigger impact than they used to.

Temperature ... a good CPU cooler and case fans can increase compute speeds by 5% or more

Cooler temps mean less thermal throttling General architecture has yeilded about a 1% or 2% increase with each iteration ... newer is better

True Cores are approx 5% to 10% faster than virtual cores (Hyper threading etc)

IPC ... instructions per clock is still a main factor to look for

Medium core counts CPU's are generally faster than high core counts at least for most typical applications ... Cinebench etc can utilise high core counts l... most software written only uses 4 cores or so ... high core count CPU's generally have lower clock speeds and lower / shorter Turbo Boost Speeds

GHZ is still king (mostly) ... But Cache (L1,L2,L3) and 'interconnects' are the new kings on the block

 

[Vanadium 50]

I'm not sure I agree. A chess benchmark might be useful for benchmarking chess programs, and it might be OK for workloads that involve searching through trees, but as a one-size-fits-all benchmark? Nope.

As far as the relationship between cores and threads, I can shown you workloads where additional threads adds nothing, where it adds a full core's worth of power, and anywhere in between. All depends on the workflow. I can even show you workflows where adding a software thread without the hardware to back it up helped a little bit. That sounds impossible, but the numbers are what they are.