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Unread 24-08-2006, 21:57
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Re: Mac G4 render farm

codyc, mhz has very little to do with how much gets done. IPC, or instructions per clock cycle is what determines how much work a processor can do per mhz. just look up some benchmarks of a lower clocked processor like a dothan (pentium m) or conroe (core 2 duo) and compare them to a higher clocked processor like a prescott (pentium 4). you will find that a conroe at 2 ghz can compete with a pressler (pentium d) at 5+ghz. A lower clocked chip with a very high IPC is better then a higher clocked chip with a low IPC. high MHZ = lots of heat, and wasted energy. that is why the pentium 4 turned into a disaster while the athlon 64 kicked butt.

there are still many other factors such as bandwidth, latency, cache, ARCHITECTURE etc.

unless you are comparing the mhz speed of the exact same chip, you are doing a hopeless apples to oranges comparison. Even if you are comparing the same chip, performance does not scale linearly to mhz. a 4ghz chip is not going to be twice as powerful as the same chip clocked at 2ghz.

Last edited by Chris27 : 24-08-2006 at 22:10.