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Originally Posted by Chris27
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.
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This is true, but the clock speed is all we have to go in in this scenario... we know nothing more about the Mac G4s than the clock speed, so we can't say which has more ram or a better video card. All we can do is assume, and as stated before... we strive for accuracy. Making calculations based on clock speeds when nothing else is known about a computer is in no way a mistake, It's working with what was given to solve a problem that was presented.
About the heat caused by Pentium 4s, I don't know if you're much into researching the reasons behind problems, but I am. The extra heat of a Pentium 4 is due to the fact that they require more core voltage to operate. My 2.8 Pentium 4 requires a core voltage of 1.8v while my brothers athlon equivalent only asks 1.6v, and yes mine runs hotter, but it beats his in all of the benchmarks. If there is more energy going into the core, then more energy will have to come out, and alot of it will be heat, but every bit as much energy will will still be going into the practical functions of the processor. High megahertz does not equal lots of heat, High core voltage does. High megahertz equals faster ability to process data.
I have searched and searched for the benchmarks That state that a
5.0 Ghz looses to a 2.0Ghz, and I just can't find them... mind pointing out where you found them?
I sure hope you didn't take those numbers out of thin air...
and as for the 6 computers that would beat the 36, you may be absolutely correct, but that has nothing to do with the question that was asked, so don't present it like a point in your argument.
As for the render wall costing more in energy and labor than the single computer... The 46 extra cents a day (when you have the machines running) and having to replace hardware every couple of years is worth it
when you have a deadline coming up and your singe Xeon can't render your project fast enough.
This is starting to feel pretty hostile, So I'm done.
-Cody C