News Intel launches new rating system

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/hardware/2009/04/08/intel-launches-new-rating-system/1

Intel has launched a new series of processor logos alongside a five-star rating system designed to help end users compare different chips.

 

i think none of those companies actually wants a objective way to judge their cpu's. that way you it would be too easy to say 'that chip is better than this one'. and still it would give no precise answer.
will a game run better on a 3,5Ghz dual core or a 2,0Ghz quad core? it depends on the game. will my internet experience differ between a 2,5dual and a 2,5quad core? No, it will most probably not.
is there a better chip? no there is not. in this time and age, it all depends on what you want to do with your chip. an objective way to measure a chip in any scenario, counting in any other features (bus width, cost, power usage, hardware monitoring, executable bit thingies, ...) , will be so cumbersome and only readable by those who know their way around in the hardware scene anyway.
and no one of those companies want the other to be able to say 'my chip is the best', even by those cumbersome standards.

i hope i made my point clear, despite my less-than-perfect(read: bad) English.

alpaca

 

I see a flaw here. If I buy a 5 star chip now is it still better than a 3 star one in two years time? Its not as if two year old chips aren't still sold now so I'd say that would make a system like this pointless.

What Intel needs to do is to produce a continuous rating system for its chips however thats not going to happen because then consumers would buy less of the very top end when they work out the bang for the buck.

 

So if the core i7 gets a 5 star rating, what happens when Intel bring out a newer faster/better cpu?
Do all the previous cpus get demoted a star? (could cause confusion if there is still older stock in the store)
Does the new chip get a 6th star (assuming it's the faster processor.)?
what happens when a new proc comes out which sits between 2 of the current ones? (half a star?)

 

I also wonder if people will see 1-2 stars as 'bad' where 4 is 'good' and 5 is 'best/great'. So will the atom in an eeepc which is perfect for what you want an eeepc for look like a rubbish chip because it'll be compared to the 5 star i7? This isn't comparing like with like. Even if each chip series had its own stars , best i7, mid i7, weakest i7, etc it's still trying to simplify something to a point where it's going to be misinformative.

 

I hope they just add more stars, the difference between a 28 and 29 star chip would be funny.

 

using a star system across different range of CPU is plain stupid, as StephenK said, according to the star system, then i'd want a i7 chip in my "best" media centre PC im building, even though an Ion platform will be enough.

they should rate their CPU within each class, eg: Q9000 gets 5 star from Core2 class, while CoreI class gives 4 stars for 920 and perhaps 3 stars for the i5 CPUs

 

True, but the same could be argued for the EuroNCAP crash tests awards, a 5 star car of 3 years ago, is not as safe as the latest 5 star car, due to changing test procedures.
I think that, it is a pointless endeavour, as most people who buy pre-built computers, turn off after reading Intel 'Core' etc, and instead concentrate on screen size, hard drives etc.
The people who build or spec their own PCs, will continue to use review sites and the enthusiast community to influence their purchases.

 

Crap idea. Stick to numbers. Even though they are ambiguous enough atm, at least it gives some indication of tier.

 

The stupid thing is it's better than Nvidia's naming system.

Anyway you can tell that the 5-star chips are all going to be the extreme editions.

 

I would expect people to think that way... but then again you could equate stars to $$$ (or local currency symbol of choice). You want 5 stars than it's going to be quite expensive. You want a cheap system then it is going to be 1 or 2 stars. Non PC people shopping for their first (or replacement) system usually go in with a budget in mind already then try to find what they can get for that price.

 

Like CD drives? 16X, 20X, 32X, 48X, 52X ? Makes sense. As faster stuff comes out it just bumps up on the scale.

Although how do you actually determine a ranking? How fast the machine can count to a billion? How well it handles a given application? What if the applicaiton is multi-threaded? or not? A quad core isn't going to help with an app that doesn't understand cores and/or threading and thus may appear slower than an older higher ghz single core CPU. I think Intel's idea has potential but there are a lot of unknowns that are going to make it difficult to implement with the current offerings and even more difficult as new stuff comes out.

 

Dunno if it has been mentioned, but what I am worried about is someone walking into a store, and seeing a (say) Q6600 with 3/4 stars, and a Q9550 with 4/5 stars, and then assuming that it means the Q9550 is 33%/25% faster across the board than the Q6600.

It depends on what sort of boundaries and criteria they use to rte the chips really.

 

You could have a few different areas, like the Microsoft ranking, gaming, multi tasking and office work maybe?
If there are just going to have the one system then I agree it could be very ambiguous. I suppose the old Core Extreme Q97(whatever) would probably be higher than the Core i7 920 in this ranking too, when I would much prefer the i7.

Something else that might be useful would be a power (electrical) rating too.

 

I don't think CPU or GPU manufacturers will ever come up with a decent numbering system for their chip models. Ultimately that's why I rely on hardware reviews like those here on Bit-tech. It's unfortunate, though that the masses do not do the research. Then again, for many people the CPU is likely not as important as the GPU. TBH, I don't really do much on my rig other than gaming. I do mundane tasks like rip MP3s, record TV shows, and web surf, but I don't really do a whole lot else on it.

 

*yawn* oh is it that time of the year again? changing modelnumbers/speedratings/comparisonvalues again are we?

Well AMD 'll follow up and rename as well and nobody will be any wiser for it.

*Bored*

 

It's already classed out

I know that a Q6700 is better than a Q6600 because of the numbers, even a noob could find that out